GIFT   OF 


FIFTY  YEARS 

OF 

IRON  AND  STEEL 


Fifty  Years    of   Iron 
and  Steel 


BY 


JOSEPH  G.  BUTLER,  JR. 


An  address  delivered  at  the  Thirteenth  General  Meeting 
of  The  American  Iron  and  Steel  Institute  in  Cincinnati, 
Ohio.  October  26,  1917,  together  with  additional  data 
concerning  the  early  use  of  iron  and  steel  and  also  a  brief 
historical  reference  to  the  formation  and  organization  of 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  embellished  with 
portraits  of  men  who  have  been  and  are  now  most  dis- 
tinguished in  the  development  of  American  Iron  and  Steel 
Industries,  and  interesting  reproductions  and  illustrations 
depicting  the  earlier  conditions  in  these  industries. 


THE  PENTON  PRESS 

CLEVELAND 

1918 


COPYRIGHT.  1918 
By  JOSEPH  Q.  BUTLER.  Ji 

Youngstown,  Ohio 


Two  Hundred  and  Fifty  copies  of  this  edition 

have   been   printed   of   which 

this    is    number 

258 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 1 

Made  Iron  Without  Coke 4 

Bessemer  Process  Begins  Era  of  Steei 6 

Mushet's     Discovery 10 

Furnace   Sets  Production  Mark 17 

Old  Stacks  Picturesque   19 

Coal  Caused  Valley  Development    27 

Early  Development  of  Coke  as  Fuel 30 

Lake   Superior  Ores    37 

Improvement  in  Handling  Ores   44 

Iron  and  Steel  Industry  in  the  South 46 

Development   of    Steel    56 

Wellman  Developed  the  Open-Hearth 70 

Tariff  Plays  an  Important  Part 72 

Broad  Vision  of  Leadership    78 

The  United  States  Steel  Corporation 80 

Friends  Who   Have  Made   Good 92 

The    Kaiser    Miscalculated 97 

Supplement    (Appendix)    99 

Early  History  of  the  Use  and   Manufacture  of  Iron   and 

Steel    .  103 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
Joseph    G.    Butler,    Jr Frontispiece 

James  Ward,  Builder  of  First  Rolling  Mill  in  Ohio 3 

William  Kelly,  Original  Discoverer  of  Pneumatic   Process.  7 

Kelly   Steel   Converter    9 

Sir    Henry    Bessemer,    For    Whom    Bessemer    Process    was 

Named    11 

Hon.  David  Tod,  Civil  War  Governor  of  Ohio 13 

David  Thomas,  Inventor  of  Thomas  Hot  Blast 15 

Old   Spearman  Furnace  at   Sharpsville,   Pa 16 

Furnace  Erected  in  1830  at  Farrandsville.  Pa 18 

Samuel  M.   Felton,  One  of  the  Founders   of  the   Pennsyl- 
vania   Steel    Co 21 

Old  Furnace  at  Baileys,  in  Pennsylvania 22 

An  Abandoned  Iron  Furnace,  Easton,  Pa 25 

First  Mill   for  Rolling  Boiler   Plates 26 

James  Kennedy,  "Big  Jim,"  an  Old  Time  Furnace  Man...  29 

Henry  Clay  Frick,     Whose    Strength   of    Purpose,   Integrity, 
and  Ability  Have  Been  Felt  Throughout  America's  Great 

Industries     33 

John  Fritz,  Noted  Inventor 35 

Explosion  Caused  by   Mesaba  Ore 36 

Capt.  Eber  B.  Ward,  Responsible  for  Construction  of  First 

Successful  Bessemer  Converter  in   America 39 

Bill  of  Lading — First  Shipment  of  Lake  Superior  Ore 41 

Bill  of  Lading — First  Shipment  of  Mesaba  Ore 43 

Julian  Kennedy,  An  Engineering  Genius 47 

James  M.  Swank,  Author  and  Statistician 49 

Sir    Lowthian    Bell,    Eminent    English    Metallurgical    En- 
gineer   and    Writer    51 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  —  Continued 

Page 
Joseph  Wharton,   Founder  of  the   Bethlehem   Steel   Co 53 

William  R.  Jones   (Captain  Bill  Jones),  a  Genius  in  Blast 
Furnace   Practice    55 

James  Park,  Jr.,  a  Pioneer  in  the  Manufacture  of  Crucible 
Steel    57 

Daniel  J.  Morrell,   Pioneer  of  the   Policy  of   Protection  to 
American    Industries    59 

Andrew  Wheeler,  Treasurer  of  the  American  Iron  &  Steel 
Association    61 

Benjamin  Franklin  Jones,  Founder  of  the  Jones  &  Laugh- 
lin     Steel     Co 63 

Robert  W.  Hunt,  Who  Rolled  First  Order  of  Steel  Rails..     65 

J.    A.    Campbell,    President    of    the    Youngstown    Sheet    & 
Tube    Co 67 

Samuel  T.  Wellman,  Pioneer  in  Steel  Manufacture 71 

Charles  E.   Smith,  First   Statistician   of  the  American   Iron 
Trade    73 

William  McKinley,  Twenty-fifth     President    of    the    United 
States    75 

'    James  A.   Farrell,   President,  United   States   Steel   Corpora- 
tion         77 

Samuel    Mather,    Leading    Spirit    in    the    Development    of 
Lake    Superior    Ore     Industry 79 

Hon.    Elbert    H.    Gary,    Foremost    Figure    in    the    Iron    and 
Steel      World      Today 81 

J.    P.    Morgan,    The    Most    Eminent    Financier    of    the 
Nineteenth  Century 83 

Andrew   Carnegie,   For   Many  Years  a  Dominant  Figure 
in    the    Iron   and   Steel    Industries 85 

Chas.     M.    Schwab,     A    Most  Interesting    Figure   in   the 
American    Iron    and    Steel    Industries 87 

Westerman  Iron  Company's  Rolling  Mills,  Sharon,  Pa.      96 


INTRODUCTION 

By  JOHN  A.  PENTON 

TO  HAVE  lived  during  a  period  of  over  sixty  years  of 
the  world's  greatest  accomplishment  and  to  have  been  an 
eye-witness  especially  of  the  great  development  in  this 
country's  iron  and  steel  industry,  should  be  almost  glory  enough. 

To  have  been,  during  this  period,  an  active  factor  in  this 
constructive  work,  at  all  times  taking  a  leading  part  in  all  of 
the  industry's  activities,  makes  the  author  of  this  paper  a 
unique  figure  among  American  men  of  affairs — men  who  have 
done  things.  To  have  been  an  eye-witness  of  iron  and  steel 
development  from  the  conversion  of  the  first  barrel  of  Lake 
Superior  ore  to  a  period  when  over  sixty  million  tons  come 
down  the  Lakes  and  other  millions  are  smelted  in  the  Upper 
Lake  region,  is  something  few  have  experienced. 

To  have  been  connected  with  the  pig  iron  industry  when 
only  six  hundred  thousand  tons  were  made  a  year  and  be  still 
connected  with  it  when  nearly  forty  million  tons  have  been 
produced  in  this  same  period,  is  an  honor  that  probably  no 
one  else  can  claim. 

And  to  have  been  in  the  industry  contemporaneous  with  Sir 
Henry  Bessemer,  Andrew  Carnegie,  John  Fritz,  Edgar  Thom- 
son, and  other  great  pioneers,  and  active  long  before  the 
days  of  James  M.  Swank,  E.  H.  Gary,  Charles  M.  Schwab, 
James  A.  Farrell,  Samuel  Mather,  W.  L.  Brown  and  other 
leaders  of  the  present,  and  to  be  interested  still  in  the  steel 
production  in  a  year  when  over  forty-two  million  tons  have 
been  made,  is  something  to  talk  about. 

But  to  be  able  also  to  look  cheerfully  and  optimistically  into 
the  future  and  expect  to  be  on  the  job  helping  to  make  a  hun- 
dred million  tons  of  steel  a  year  and  to  tell  about  it  in  a 
way  to  charm  and  hold  the  reader  as  these  pages  do — 
why  what's  the  use — there  is  only  one  "Uncle  Joe"  in  the 
steel  industry. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

By  JOSEPH  G.  BUTLER,  JR. 

N  HONORING  me  with  a  place  on 
your  program,  the  Committee  evi- 
dently regarded  half  a  century  as 
long  enough  for  any  man  to  be 
actively  engaged  in  the  iron  and 
steel  industries.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
my  experience  in  them  covers  a  period  of  sixty 
years,  for  I  became  shipping  clerk  and  assistant 
manager  at  the  Iron  Rolling  Mill  of  James 
Ward  &  Company,  Niles,  Ohio,  in  1857,  after 
having  spent  three  years  as  a  clerk  in  the  store 
connected  with  that  enterprise,  during  which 
time  I  added  to  my  accomplishments  the  mus- 
ical art  of  speaking  Welsh  and  also  acquired 
the  ambition  to  become  an  ironmaster. 

These  sixty  years  cover  the  greatest  progress 
the  world  has  ever  known.  They  have  brought 
forth  so  many  startling  discoveries,  so  many 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

striking  inventions,  so  many  achievements  en- 
riching and  broadening  human  life,  that  merely 
to  mention  all  of  them  would  be  a  tedious  task. 
Most  of  these  were  the  work  of  American  genius. 
They  are  the  fruits  of  individual  liberty  and  just 
reward  for  individual  effort  first  known  to  the 
world  after  our  forefathers  had  established  free- 
dom in  enduring  form  upon  this  Continent.  The 
mere  contemplation  of  this  progress  should 
serve  to  remind  us  of  our  obligations  at  this 
time,  when  civilization  is  turning  the  sharpest 
corner  in  its  history,  and  when  the  right  of  men 
to  self-government  and  self-development  is 
threatened  as  it  has  never  been  threatened 
before. 

Sixty  years  ago  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
the  steel  business  in  America.  The  trifling  pro- 
duction of  "blister"  steel,  amounting  to  a  few 
thousand  tons  per  year,  was  not  worthy  of  that 
designation,  but  the  iron  business  had  already 
laid  the  foundations  of  its  future  greatness,  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  had  then  com- 
paratively no  ores,  no  efficient  fuel,  no  adequate 
machinery  and  very  little  of  the  practical  and 
scientific  knowledge  so  widely  diffused  today. 


JAMES  WARD 

With  William  Ward  and  Thomas  Russell,  he  Built  at  Niles 
in  1842,  the  First  Rolling  Mill  in  the  State  of  Ohio. 


\\y, 

/'/•  / 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

MADE  IRON  WITHOUT  COKE 

When  I  entered  the  iron  business,  we  made 
iron  without  coke — a  task  resembling  that  of 
the  Hebrews  who  were  compelled  to  make 
bricks  without  straw.  We  had  what  would  now 
be  considered  no  ore,  for  the  chief  supply  was 
derived  from  an  occasional  pocket  in  the  hills 
or  gathered  from  swamps  or  the  beds  of  creeks. 
We  had  no  furnace  tops,  no  blast  stoves,  no  hot 
blast  as  we  know  it  now,  no  metallurgists,  and 
in  the  light  of  the  present  experience,  no  markets. 
We  knew  nothing  of  the  value  of  gas,  natural 
or  manufactured,  a  fuel  indispensable  in  the 
manufacture  of  iron  and  steel  in  large  quanti- 
ties, but  we  did  have  grit  and  energy — the  de- 
termination to  do  our  best,  and  the  same  pride 
in  doing  things  that  we  have  now. 

There  were  some  compensations,  of  course. 
The  payrolls  were  not  so  large  and  we  were  not 
troubled  with  a  shortage  of  cars  to  move  our 
product.  I  recently  came  across  a  statement 
issued  by  the  superintendent  of  the  Ward  fur- 
nace, operated  under  lease  at  Youngstown,  about 
the  time  of  my  entrance  into  the  iron  business. 
It  reads  as  follows: 

4 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Youngstown,  Ohio,  August  25,  1853. 
Messrs.    James    Ward    &    Company, 

Gents. 
Below  you  have  the  furnace  proceeds  for  last  week: 

Charges    Coal     Ore     Lime 
Aug.   13      90      400      480      160        7j4 

14  84        "          «          "          7 

15  87        "  "          7^ 

16  87        "          "          «          6^ 

17  84        "          "          "          7 

18  84        "          "  S*/2  3300 

19  81  "          6y2  1500 

597       HSy2  143        43      47^       metal  4800  casting 

Our    next    payroll    will    amount    to    something    like    $200. 
We  ought  to  have  at  least  $20  in  cash.     Yours,  etc.,  etc. 

James   Cochran,   Superintendent. 

PAID  MEN  IN  GOODS 

The  payroll  referred  to  was  for  one  month. 
The  cash  was  needed  to  give  some  of  the  men  a 
little  money  for  some  special  purpose.  As  a 
rule,  they  were  paid  in  store  goods.  Among 
some  other  furnace  records  of  these  days  I  have 
seen  an  entry  reading: 

"  Paid  James  Dobson  six  dollars  to  git 
married  ". 

At  some  of  the  furnaces  in  that  locality  it 
was  the  custom  to  give  the  men  a  dollar  in  cash 
at  Christmas  and  the  Fourth  of  July.  At  other 
times  they  got  along  without  any  money.  From 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

all  of  which  it  will  be  seen  that  many  things, 
among  them  getting  married  and  running  a 
blast  furnace,  were  done  with  less  capital  than 
at  the  present  time. 

There  was  at  that  time  no  thought  of  making 
steel  at  the  ordinary  iron  works.  The  equip- 
ment consisted  of  one  or  more  small  heating 
furnaces,  one  or  two  trains  of  rolls,  perhaps  a 
forge  fire  or  two,  a  few  puddling  furnaces  and 
occasionally  some  machinery  for  making  cut 
nails.  The  product  was  usually  either  simply 
pig  iron,  or  merchant  bars,  a  commodity  which, 
by  the  way,  has  not  changed  its  name  in  the 
whole  250  years  since  iron  was  first  formed  by 
forging  into  that  shape. 

BESSEMER    PROCESS    BEGINS    ERA    OF    STEEL 

The  steel  business  was  really  born  in  Ameri- 
ca when  the  Bessemer  process  came  into  use  here, 
which  was  not  until  about  1864.  The  idea  of 
removing  carbon  and  silicon  from  blast  furnace 
iron  in  this  wray  was  undoubtedly  first  con- 
ceived by  an  American,  although  he  failed  to 
develop  the  machinery  for  its  use,  and,  as  a 
consequence,  reaped  very  little  benefit  from  it. 
When  William  Kelly,  who  first  decarburized 

6 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

Original    Discoverer   of    the    Pneumatic    Process    for 
Converting   Iron   Into   Steel. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

iron  by  means  of  an  air  blast  in  a  furnace  he 
had  erected  for  that  purpose  at  Eddyville,  Ky., 
about  1850,  came  to  file  his  claim  for  a  patent 
in  1856  he  found  that  Henry  Bessemer  had  filed 
similar  claims  and  been  granted  patents  a  few 
days  previously.  Kelly  had  worked  for  years 
on  his  scheme,  which  was  identical  in  principle, 
but  he  had  not  yet  made  it  a  commercial  success 
and  did  not  attempt  to  make  steel  in  that  man- 
ner. Nevertheless,  his  use  of  the  pneumatic 
process  first  was  not  disputed  and  he  was  granted 
an  interference  as  against  the  Bessemer  patent. 
I  can  distinctly  recall  a  visit  made  by  this 
man  to  Niles  while  I  was  a  member  of  the  Ward 
family,  being  employed  in  the  Ward  store,  about 
1854.  He  came  there  to  enlist  the  interest  of 
James  Ward,  then  regarded  as  an  authority 
on  the  iron  question,  in  behalf  of  his  experiments, 
and  was  a  guest  at  the  Ward  table  on  several 
occasions.  How  far  he  succeeded  in  his  errand 
may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Ward  said 
after  he  left  that  he  was  crazy. 
\l  The  invention  of  the  Bessemer  process,  or 
rather  its  perfection  and  development,  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  the  longest  single  step  in  the 
march  of  progress  that  has  brought  the  iron 

8 


The   First    Pneumatic   Converter  Used  in  the  United  States. 
Photographed  on  the  Lawn  of   the   Cambria  Steel   Com- 
pany Offices   in  Johnstown,  Pa.,  Where  it  is  Preserved 
as   a  Curiosity. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

and  steel  industries  to  their  present  stage,  but 
there  are  other  discoveries  that  seem  to  me  even 
more  important.  We  cannot  make  steel  with- 
out iron,  and,  therefore,  of  even  more  moment 
than  this  invention  were  such  things  as  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Lake  Superior  ore  ranges,  the  in- 
vention of  the  furnace  top,  the  use  of  coke  and 
its  economical  manufacture,  the  development  of 
high  blast  temperatures,  and  especially  in  view 
of  its  recent  rapid  adoption,  the  Siemens-Martin 
open-hearth  furnace. 

All  of  the  various  steps  in  these  improvements 
have  been  made  during  the  time  in  which  I  was 
greatly  interested  in  them  and  it  has  been  my 
pleasure  and  privilege  to  follow  them  closely 
and  to  know  something  of  the  trials  and  dis- 
appointments undergone  by  men  who  conceived 
and  brought  them  to  perfection,  or  rather  to 
their  present  state;  for  it  is  entirely  probable 
that  future  generations  will  continue  the  work 
with  the  same  zest  and  at  least  part  of  the 
success  that  has  attended  it  so  far. 

RECALLS  MUSKET'S  DISCOVERY 

As  has  been  stated,  I  met  Mr.  Kelly  when 
he  was  trying  to  make  his  great  discovery 

10 


SIR  HEXRY  BESSEMER 
For  Whom  the  Bessemer  Steel  Process  was  Named. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

a  practical  success.  I  saw  him  on  a  number  of 
occasions  later,  when  he  was  working  to  unravel 
the  skein  of  litigation  that  tied  up  the  Bessemer 
process  and  prevented  its  adoption  in  this  coun- 
try until  ten  years  after  it  was  patented  here. 
I  can  recall  the  announcement  in  the  technical 
journals  of  that  day  of  the  discovery  by  Robert 
Mushet,  a  Scotchman,  that  speigeleisen  would 
recarburize  iron  blown  in  a  converter  and  thus 
produce  steel.  We  did  not  know  of  this  in 
America  for  some  time  after  Mushet's  patents 
were  granted  in  England,  which  was  in  the  latter 
part  of  1856.  Up  to  that  time  Kelly  did  not 
suspect  that  he  had  found  a  new  way  to  make 
steel,  and  had  urged  his  process  on  iron  manu- 
facturers only  as  a  cheap  and  rapid  method  of 
purifying  iron  for  rolling  mills,  claiming  that  it 
would  take  the  place  of  puddling  —  something  it 
has,  by  the  way,  never  done. 

Likewise  I  was  privileged  to  watch  every 
step  in  the  development  of  the  hot  blast.  At  the 
Ward  furnace  at  Niles,  and  in  other  furnaces  in 
the  Valley,  the  blast  was  heated  by  passing  it 
through  cast  iron  pipes,  and  these  lasted  but  a 
short  time,  their  renewal  and  replacement  keep- 
ing the  local  foundries  busy  and  interfering 

12 


HOX.   DAVID   TOD 

Pioneer  in  the  Manufacture  of  Iron  and  Mining  of  Coal 
the  Mahoning  Valley.     Pioneer  Railroad  Builder. 
Civil  War  Governor  of  Ohio. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

seriously  with  continuous  operation.  We  had 
what  we  called  a  hot  blast,  but  it  was  really 
only  warm  in  comparison  with  modern  practice. 
The  furnaceman  tested  its  temperature  with  lead 
and  zinc,  strips  of  which  were  inserted  at  the 
point  where  it  entered  the  furnace.  If  the  blast 
melted  lead  it  was  not  quite  hot  enough,  and 
if  it  melted  zinc  it  was  too  hot,  so  we  believed, 
and  would  burn  the  iron.  Between  the  melt- 
ing point  of  lead  and  zinc,  as  we  now  know, 
there  is  a  very  considerable  difference,  so  that 
our  wind  varied  about  as  much  in  temperature 
as  it  did  in  pressure.  If  you  reflect  that  the 
blast  in  those  days  was  blown  usually  by  an 
engine  that  had  been  worn  out  on  a  Mississippi 
River  steamboat,  and  that  it  was  the  usual  thing 
for  the  men  about  a  furnace  to  operate  the 
walking  beam  when  the  engine  broke  down, 
you  will  have  some  light  on  the  strength  and 
steadiness  of  the  hot  blast  of  that  day. 

It  was  about  1868  that  the  Player  hot  blast 
stove  was  brought  from  England  to  this  country. 
It  was  a  decided  improvement.  This  stove  in- 
troduced an  innovation  in  being  located  on  the 
ground  instead  of  at  the  tunnel-head.  The  first 
stove  to  employ  the  regenerative  principle  was 

14 


DAVID  THOMAS 

Inventor    of    the    Thomas    Hot    Blast.      Made    the    First    Pig 
Iron  with  Anthracite  Coal  as  Fuel. 


t/3 


0, 

in 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  Whitwell  stove,  and  it  was  lined  with  fire- 
brick, also  a  new  idea.  Both  it  and  the  Player 
stoves  immediately  increased  the  output  of 
furnaces  and  made  larger  stacks  possible,  al- 
though it  was  many  years  before  they  sup- 
planted the  old  Thomas  stoves  at  many  Ameri- 
can furnaces. 

The  use  of  furnace  gas  for  heating  the  blast 
in  this  country  we  owe  to  the  Germans,  the 
first  effort  to  bring  these  gases  down  and  burn 
them  under  stoves  and  boilers  in  America  hav- 
ing been  made  by  C.  E.  Detmold,  a  German 
engineer,  residing  in  New  York  about  1850. 
The  new  plan  cost  a  good  deal  of  money  and  was 
slowly  adopted  for  that  reason.  We  did  not 
get  to  it  in  Ohio  for  some  years  after  it  was  used 
in  the  East.  I  recall  very  distinctly  the  first 
furnace  top  installed  at  Youngstown.  It  was 
thought  highly  dangerous  by  the  workmen,  and 
there  was  at  first  some  difficulty  in  getting  them 
to  work  around  the  stack. 

FURNACE  SETS  PRODUCTION  MARK 

With  the  use  of  better  stoves  and  the  intro- 
duction of  more  powerful  blowing  engines,  fur- 
naces began  to  grow  in  size  and  more  attention 

17 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

was  paid  to  their  lines.  It  was  realized  that 
much  improvement  could  be  made  in  the  out- 
put, and  progress  in  this  direction  was  rapid. 
By  1875  it  was  known  that  blast  furnaces  could 
be  operated  successfully  up  to  eighty  feet  in 
height,  and,  with  coke  for  fuel  and  proper  equip- 
ment for  blowing  and  heating  the  blast,  could 
be  made  to  yield  much  larger  product  than  had 
been  expected  up  to  that  time.  But  it  was 
not  until  about  1880  that  one  of  these  larger 
furnaces  reached  an  output  much  above  100 
tons  per  day.  This  was  the  Isabella,  located  at 
Etna,  near  Pittsburg.  During  three  years  - 
1881,  1882  and  1883—  this  furnace  produced  an 
average  of  1090  tons  per  week  —  trie  best  ever 
done  by  a  blast  furnace  up  to  that  time  in  this 
or  any  other  country. 

OLD    STACKS    PICTURESQUE 

To  those  who  have  had  experience  only  with 
the  present  day  blast  furnace  and  modern  fur- 
nace practice,  it  is  impossible  to  portray  the 
conditions  surrounding  our  industry  at  the  time 
when  I  first  became  interested  in  it.  The  old 
stack  of  those  days  with  its  equipment,  would  be 
picturesque  in  the  extreme  if  it  could  be  set  in 

19 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  vicinity  of  a  modern  steel  works.  The  stack 
was  usually  about  thirty-five  feet  in  height  and 
built  of  masonry,  lined  on  the  inside  with  a  poor 
quality  of  fire-brick.  It  was  square  in  section, 
on  the  outside,  the  bottom  being  about  twenty- 
four  feet  each  way  and  the  top  somewhat  smaller, 
this  depending  on  the  ideas  of  the  man  who 
designed  it.  The  stack  was  usually  located 
against  a  bluff,  the  double  purpose  being  to  make 
construction  cheaper  by  using  the  hill  to  reinforce 
one  side  and  to  enable  a  patient  mule  to  perform 
the  functions  of  a  skip  hoist  by  dragging  the 
ore  to  the  top  of  the  hill.  A  short  bridge 
connected  the  stockhouse  with  the  stack  and  the 
material  charged  was  wheeled  from  this  point 
and  dumped  in  at  the  open  top. 

Only  one  or  two  tuyeres  were  used,  and  these 
were  often  on  the  same  side  of  the  stack,  next 
to  the  blowing  engine.  In  front  was  the  sand 
bed,  into  which  the  iron  was  run,  and  to  one  side 
the  space  reserved  for  roasting  the  ores.  No 
water  cooling  devices  were  used  except  at  the 
tuyeres  and  the  opening  in  front.  It  was  a 
very  small  proposition  compared  with  what  we 
are  used  to  at  this  time,  but  was,  nevertheless, 
a  source  of  general  public  interest,  and  regarded 

20 


SAMUEL  M.   FELTON 

A  Pioneer  in  the  Manufacture  of  Steel.     One  of  the  Founders 
of  The  Pennsylvania  Steel  Company. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

with  considerable  awe  by  the  uninitiated.  I  can 
recall  the  first  furnace  in  our  district  whose 
builders  had  nerve  to  locate  it  away  from  a  hill. 
They  used  a  hoisting  device  in  which  a  tank 
filled  with  water  raised  the  platform  on  which 
two  wheelbarrows  loaded  with  ore  had  been 
placed.  When  the  barrows  were  dumped  they 
were  wheeled  back  on  the  platform,  the  water 
was  let  out  of  the  tank  at  the  other  end  of  the 
rope,  and  they  came  down  to  be  refilled. 

The  blowing  engines  were  of  the  crudest  type 
and  had  but  little  power.  There  was  then  no 
method  of  gauging  the  pressure  accurately  and 
this  was  one  of  the  cares  of  the  furnace  boss. 
He  was  expected  also  to  know  when  the  furnace 
was  ready  to  cast,  the  proper  color  of  the  iron, 
and  a  great  many  other  things.  As  a  rule  he 
did  know  these  things  better  than  might  be  ex- 
pected, and  these  old  furnaces  made  good  iron 
even  if  they  did  not  make  much  of  it. 

Even  this  type  of  furnace  was  a  great  im- 
provement over  those  in  use  in  that  locality 
forty  years  earlier,  for  they  used  the  "trompe"  or 
water  blast,  which  was,  you  may  be  sure,  some- 
what removed  from  the  Gayley  Dry  Blast.  This 
was  a  contrivance  by  which  a  waterfall  was 

23 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

made  to  carry  air  into  a  box,  compressing  it  in 
the  top,  from  which  it  was  carried  to  the  furnace 
through  a  small  pipe. 

It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  the  first 
furnace  erected  by  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company 
was  one  torn  down  at  Escanaba  and  taken  to 
Pittsburg.  It  had  been  erected  in  Michigan  to 
be  near  the  ore  fields  but  its  owners  found  that 
the  problems  of  transportation  could  not  be 
solved  in  that  way  alone. 

Scattered  all  over  the  Eastern  States  can 
be  found  the  ruins  of  once  ambitious  efforts  to 
make  iron  cheaply  by  locating  furnaces  close 
to  the  ore.  Some  of  the  most  pathetic  failures, 
however,  were  furnaces  placed,  as  their  builders 
believed,  close  to  both  ore  and  fuel,  and  even 
to  transportation.  In  the  Juniata  Valley  and 
the  Allegheny  Mountains  are  many  of  these 
monuments  to  the  realization  that  the  problems 
of  transportation  are  of  great  importance  in  the 
iron  industry.  These  old  stacks,  built  to  defy 
the  ravages  of  time,  were  placed  where  ore  had 
been  found  and  where  wood  was  abundant  for 
the  making  of  charcoal.  Most  of  them  were 
built  after  the  construction  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Canal  and  the  Old  Portage  Railroad,  both  huge 

24 


An    Abandoned     Iron     Furnace    in     Eastern     Pennsylvania, 

The   Tree    Growing   Out   of    One    Side    Best 

Indicates  the  Age  of  the  Stack. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

enterprises  for  their  day.  But  the  canal  has 
disappeared,  the  famous  old  railroad  is  nothing 
but  a  memory,  and  these  hollow  structures  of 
stone  remain  as  mute  witnesses  of  the  fallibility 
of  human  calculations  and  the  certainty  of  that 
change  which  is  the  seed  of  all  progress  and  which 
is  continually  building  on  the  ruins  of  the  best 
efforts  of  men  better  things  than  those  of  which 
they  dream.  Huge  trees  may  be  seen  on  the 
tops  of  some  of  these  old  furnaces  and  around 
their  bases  the  forest  leaves  have  buried  frag- 
ments of  pig  iron,  which  precious  as  it  was,  had 
to  be  left  behind  in  the  rapid  march  of  progress. 

COAL  CAUSED  VALLEY  DEVELOPMENT 

About  1860  coke  was  regularly  used  as  fuel  in 
the  Clinton  furnace  at  Pittsburg,  and  within  a 
few  years  it  proved  so  efficient  that  all  other 
fuels  were  practically  eliminated  except  for  mak- 
ing special  grades  of  iron.  When  I  first  became 
interested  in  the  furnace  business,  all  the  stacks 
in  the  Mahoning  Valley,  as  well  as  those  in 
Hocking  Valley,  at  Canal  Dover  and  at  several 
other  points  in  Ohio,  were  using  raw  coal.  It 
was  to  a  rich  deposit  of  black-band  ore  found 
underneath  the  coal  at  Mineral  Ridge,  near 

27 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Niles,  and  the  equally  important  discovery  at 
Brier  Hill,   in  Youngstown,   of  coal  making   a 
fairly  good  fuel  in  its  raw  state,  an  almost  nat- 
ural coke,  that  the  development  of  iron  business 
in  the  Mahoning  Valley  was  due.     This  coal, 
very  similar  to  the  Scotch  coal  afterwards  found 
in  other  parts  of  Ohio,  was  rich  in  carbon  and 
low  in  ash,  and  in  the  hands  of  those  who  un- 
derstood it,  made  a  better  blast  furnace  fuel  than 
had  yet  been  found  at  its  low  cost.     For  years 
it  was  mined  close  to  the  stacks  and  hauled  by 
mules.     All  of  the  ore,   usually   a   mixture  of 
black-band,   kidney   and   bog  ores,   had   to   be 
roasted  before  charging,  and  this  was  done  with 
wood  and  coal  in  great  heaps  near  the  furnaces. 
The  output  of  the  four  furnaces  then  in  opera- 
tion in  that  district  was  certainly  not  more  than 
two   hundred   tons   per  week.     From   this   has 
grown  a  business  employing  fifty  blast  furnaces 
and  producing,  during  1916,  6,923,938  tons  of 
pig    iron.     From    the    few    small    rolling    mill 
plants   then   in  that  neighborhood,   have  been 
evolved   forty-six  modern   rolling  mills,   rolling 
almost  four  million  tons  of  steel  per  year. 

28 


BIG  JIM  KENNEDY 
And  Old  Time  Furnaceman. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

EARLY  DEVELOPMENT  OF  COKE  AS  FUEL 

Owing  to  the  advantage  of  this  natural  fuel, 
known  as  "Brier  Hill"  coal,  we  did  not  begin 
the  use  of  coke  in  furnaces  at  Youngstown  until 
1869,  at  which  time  the  coal  began  to  grow 
scarce.  An  Englishman  employed  about  one 
of  the  furnaces  had  some  years  previously  made 
coke  by  covering  coal  in  a  heap,  and  this  was 
used  on  occasions  when  a  furnace  went  cold,  but 
the  raw  fuel,  the  coal,  was  the  main  dependence 
until  about  the  date  mentioned,  when  we  began 
to  use  bee  hive  coke. 

The  employment  of  coke  as  a  blast  furnace 
fuel  was  an  advance  of  such  importance  that  it 
is  worth  while  to  refer  to  it  somewhat  more 
comprehensively.  It  was  known  in  Germany 
and  England  long  before  its  use  anywhere  in 
America,  where  charcoal  was  at  first  relatively 
low  in  cost.  The  date  and  place  where  coke 
was  first  used  in  this  country  are  not  entirely 
certain,  but  it  was  possibly  tried  in  several  places 
at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century.  A  para- 
graph in  a  history  of  Fayette  County,  Pa.,  re- 
fers to  the  use  of  coke  in  Alleghany  furnace, 
Blair  County,  in  1811.  William  Firmstone  used 
it  for  a  short  time  in  a  furnace  in  Huntington 

30 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

County,  Pa.,  in  1835,  but  abandoned  it  later. 
There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  he  succeeded 
in  making  good  gray  iron  with  it  at  the  date 
mentioned,  but  why  he  did  not  continue  has 
never  been  recorded.  In  1856,  there  were 
twenty-one  furnaces  in  Pennsylvania  and  three 
in  Maryland  using  coke,  but,  so  far  as  is  known, 
none  west  of  these  States.  The  census  of  1850 
enumerates  four  furnaces  as  burning  coke,  and 
1860  twenty-one  reported  its  use.  In  the  next 
ten  years  the  census  people  found  only  five  more 
plants  using  coke,  but  it  is  probable  there 
were  many  that  did  not  report  its  use  at  that 
time.  At  any  rate,  by  1880,  the  census  reports 
enumerated  149  stacks  blowing  on  that  fuel. 

Coke  from  that  time  on  rapidly  supplanted 
charcoal  and  all  other  fuels,  including  anthra- 
cite coal.  It  is  now  used  almost  exclusively. 
Out  of  465  blast  furnaces  now  in  operation  or 
building  in  this  country,  only  forty  use  charcoal, 
the  others  being  fired  with  coke  or,  in  a  few  in- 
stances with  coke  and  coal  mixed.  The  charcoal 
furnaces  are  chiefly  small  and  of  antiquated  type, 
their  output  for  1916  having  been  only  372,411 
tons  of  iron  as  compared  with  39,062,386  tons 
produced  in  coke  or  in  coal  and  coke  driven 

31 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

stacks.  No  new  charcoal  furnaces  were  reported 
building  in  1916,  but  17  coke  furnaces,  with 
an  annual  capacity  of  3,151,000  tons,  were  under 
construction  at  the  close  of  that  year. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  make  the  first  contract 
for  coke  entered  into  by  Mr.  H.  C.  Frick,  a  man 
whose  name  must  be  always  inseparable  from 
the  history  of  the  coke  industry  in  America,  when 
he  began  the  coke  business  on  his  own  account, 
and  I  would  be  ashamed  to  tell  you  the  price, 
as  I  think  he  would  also.  I  bought  the  first 
coke  used  in  the  Mahoning  Valley  for  a  furnace 
at  Girard  then  under  my  management.  The 
exact  date  has  escaped  my  memory,  but  it  was 
in  the  late  60's.  This  coke  was  used  as  a  mix- 
ture with  Brier  Hill  coal,  and  some  coal  was 
still  used  as  a  mixture  until  twenty  years 
later,  when  we  could  no  longer  obtain  it  in 
satisfactory  quantities.  The  mixture  made 
what  we  thought  then  was  a  very  satisfactory 
and  economical  fuel,  the  coal  adding  to  the  sur- 
plus gas  production. 

I  have  bought  many  thousands  of  tons  of 
good  beehive  coke  at  eighty-five  cents  per  ton. 
The  average  selling  price  of  the  entire  output 
of  the  country  in  1880  was  $1.99  per  ton  at  ovens. 

32 


HENRY   CLAY   FRICK 

Whose  Strength  of  Purpose,  Integrity  and  Ability  have  been 
Felt  Throughout  America's   Great  Industries. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

There  were  then  12,372  beehive  ovens  in  oper- 
ation, and  the  production  was  3,338,300  tons. 
During  1916,  according  to  the  estimates  at  hand 
-the  exact  figures  not  being  available,  the 
country's  entire  production  of  coke  was 
54,325,000  tons  and  of  this  35.35  per  cent 
was  made  in  by-product  ovens.  Some  coke 
was  sold  in  1917  as  high  as  $15  per  ton,  surely  a 
war  price. 

Hardly  less  important  for  the  country  than 
the  addition  to  furnace  output  resulting  from 
the  use  of  coke  is  the  rapid  development  of  the 
by-product  industry.  It  has  grown  from  5.41 
per  cent  in  1901  to  35.35  per  cent  in  1916.  No 
other  single  development  has  done  so  much  to 
conserve  the  natural  resources  of  America'  and 
none  has  more  effectively  indicated  the  energy, 
wisdom  and  public-spirit  of  the  men  at  the  head 
of  our  iron  and  steel  plants.  The  erection  of 
by-product  plants  involves  huge  expenditure, 
but  they  make  large  profits  and  save  for  future 
generations  incalculable  natural  wealth.  It  is 
safe  to  predict  that  the  wasteful  beehive  oven 
will  soon  take  its -place  in  the  limbo  of  great 
mistakes,  among  the  dust  of  ignorance,  with 
many  other  things  that  wrere  once  hailed  as 

34 


JOHN  FRITZ 

Noted  Inventor;  Practical  Worker  in  Iron  and  Steel  of 
International  Reputation. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

great  discoveries  and  thought  to  be  the  limit 
of  human  knowledge. 

LAKE    SUPERIOR    ORES 

The  development  of  the  Lake  Superior  ore 
deposits  has  exercised  on  the  iron  and  steel  in- 
dustries of  the  world  an  influence  more  far- 
reaching  than  any  other  incident  in  their  his- 
tory. Previous  to  that  time  furnaces  and  iron 
works  had  been  located  in  many  places  where 
ore  and  fuel  could  be  found.  But  the  time  had 
come  when  such  resources  were  inadequate  to 
meet  the  growing  needs  of  the  country.  Per- 
haps it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  the 
time  had  come  when  the  further  progress  of 
'civilization  demanded  iron  ore  in  quantities  and 
at  a  cost  hitherto  undreamed  of.  There  is  no 
question  that,  from  the  time  of  the  discovery 
of  the  Mesaba  Range,  civilization  and  progress 
received  a  tremendous  impulse  from  the  cheaper 
iron  and  steel  it  made  possible.  From  this  time 
it  became  evident  that  the  production  of  these 
commodities  had  to  be  on  an  enormous  scale, 
and  that  the  day  of  the  small  furnace  was  at 
an  end.  It  became  evident  also,  that  hence- 
forth the  industries  must  be  confined  to  those 

37 


Fifty  Years  of  .Iron  and  Steel 

localities  where  ore  and  fuel  could  be  assembled 
in  vast  tonnages  at  low  cost,  and  markets  reached 
with  the  greatest  facility.  The  first  effect  of 
this  discovery  was  to  practically  limit  the  pro- 
duction of  iron  and  steel  in  large  tonnages  to 
regions  most  accessible  to  great  ore  and  fuel 
deposits.  The  Pittsburg  and  Youngstown  dis- 
tricts had  no  rival  in  this  respect  except,  per- 
haps, the  Atlantic  coast  district,  where  the  rich 
ores  of  Cuba  and  South  America  were  available 
at  equal  distance  from  the  Connellsville  coke 
field.  Even  this  district  is  now  suffering  from 
the  accidental  dislocation  of  ocean  freight  serv- 
ice and  is  glad  to  get  ores  from  Lake  Superior, 
which  have  no  equal  in  low  cost  and  purity. 

Unfortunately  I  am  not  able  to  give  the  cost 
of  ore  at  the  furnaces  of  early  days.  The  rec- 
ords then  kept  were  imperfect  in  this  respect 
and  the  dollar  did  not  mean  the  same  thing  as 
it  does  now.  But  it  was  very  high,  in  spite  of 
the  exceedingly  low  price  of  other  commodities, 
and  must  have  varied  greatly  at  different  fur- 
naces, depending  on  whether  it  was  mined  from 
rich  deposits  or  from  those  where  it  was  poor 
in  quality  and  limited  in  quantity. 

The  honor  of  discovering  the  ore  deposits 
near  Lake  Superior  is  variously  claimed.  Some 

38 


CAPT.  EBER  B.  WARD 

Chief   Owner   of   the    Plant   at   Wyandotte,    Mich.,    and 
sponsible  for  the  Construction  of  the  First  Suc- 
cessful Bessemer  Converter  in  America. 


Re- 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

writers  credit  it  to  Government  engineers  who 
noticed  a  variation  of  the  magnetic  needle  and 
investigated  the  cause.  Others  state  that  the 
Indians  had  found  the  ores  and  reported  large 
masses  of  "iron  stone"  in  that  locality.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  the  honor  belongs  to  Philo 
M.  Everett  who,  in  1845,  located  the  Marquette 
Range  in  company  with  Indian  guides. 

The  various  ranges  were  opened  for  shipment 
of  ore  in  the  following  order: 

Marquette 1850 

Menominee 1870 

Gogebic 1884 

Vermilion 1884 

Mesaba 1892 

Michipicoten 1900 

'  Baraboo 1904 

Cuyuna 1911 

The  first  regular  shipments  in  cargo  down 
the  lakes  began  somewhat  later  than  the  dates 
mentioned  for  all  these  ranges.  That  from  the 
Marquette  was  in  1856,  the  opening  of  the  Sault 
Ste.  Marie  Canal  in  that  year  having  made  possi- 
ble cargoes  large  enough  for  that  day,  although 
they  would  seem  insignificant  at  this  time.  The 
total  shipments  by  water  from  this  region  in 
1856  were  only  7,000  tons,  about  half  enough 

40 


Reproduction    of    Bill    of    Lading    First    Shipment    of    Lake 
Superior  Ore.     Loaned  by  Oglebay,  Norton  &  Co. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

to  make  a  cargo  for  a  modern  ore  boat.  This 
ore  was  valued  at  $28,000.  In  1856  first-class 
"specular"  or  "hard"  ore  from  the  Marquette 
Range  brought  $7  per  ton  on  the  docks  at  Cleve- 
land. 

Up  to  1908  all  the  ranges  in  the  Lake  Supe- 
rior region  had  produced  a  total  of  407,060,116 
tons  of  ore.  In  1912  their  output  had  increased 
to  48,221,546  tons  for  that  year  alone,  and  in 
1916  it  reached  the  grand  total  of  66,658,466 
tons — or  11,000,000  tons  more  than  the  entire 
production  of  the  United  States  in  1915,  ac- 
cording to  the  figures  of  the  United  States 
Geological  Survey. 

In  1916  the  Mesaba  Range  alone  produced 
42,525,612  tons  or  almost  64  per  cent,  achieving 
a  record  as  the  greatest  source  of  iron  ore  on  the 
globe.  The  Mesaba  Range  has  led  in  production 
since  1895,  and  its  development  has  revolu- 
tionized the  iron  and  steel  industries  of  America. 
Because  the  ore  on  this  range  can  be  mined 
with  great  economy,  and  because  of  its  close 
proximity  to  the  Lakes,  it  can  furnish  ore  at  a 
lower  cost  per  ton  of  iron  than  any  other  part 
of  the  world  where  there  are  furnaces  to  smelt 
it.  Equally  rich  and  accessible  deposits  may 

42 


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Reproduction  Bill  of  Lading  First  Shipment  of  Mesaba  Ore. 
Loaned   by   Oglebay,    Norton    &   Co. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

exist  in  India  and  South  America,  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  tropics  are  not  suited 
to  the  manufacture  of  iron,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  anything  equal  to  this  range  will  be  found 
within  the  temperate  zones.  Because  of  the 
conditions  on  the  Mesaba  Range  we  have  learned 
to  mine  ore  by  stripping,  even  at  a  depth  of 
300  feet,  and  this  of  itself  has  been  a  long  step 
toward  economy  in  the  cost  of  production. 

IMPROVEMENT    IN    HANDLING    ORES 

Following  the  development  of  the  Mesaba 
Range  came  astounding  improvements  in  the 
mining  and  transportation  of  ore  which,  together 
with  the  tremendous  supply  of  the  Lake  Superior 
region,  have  had  much  to  do  with  the  phenom- 
enal growth  of  our  iron  and  steel  industries. 

When  we  began  to  use  Lake  Superior  ores 
the  ordinary  cargo  of  a  lake  boat  was  500  tons. 
It  required  several  days  to  load  and  unload  this 
cargo  at  every  point  where  it  had  to  be  handled 
— four  in  all.  The  ore  cars  then  in  use  carried 
only  ten  tons.  When  their  capacity  was  in- 
creased to  twenty-five  tons  and  boats  were  built 
that  would  carry  1,000  tons,  we  thought  our 
problems  were  solved.  Now  we  have  vessels 

44 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

loading  as  high  as  12,000  tons  at  the  upper  ports 
in  one  or  two  hours  with  one  or  two  men  on 
the  dock,  and  unloading  their  cargo  directly 
into  fifty-ton  cars  in  about  the  same  time,  with 
practically  no  manual  labor. 

In  the  old  days  men  with  shovels  loaded  the 
ore  at  the  mines  into  small  cars,  from  which  it 
was  transferred  to  railroad  cars.  They  handled 
it  again  the  same  way  four  times  before  it 
reached  the  furnace,  for  even  the  hopper  car 
had  not  then  been  invented.  Aside  from  being 
the  most  laborious  task  to  which  a  human  back 
was  ever  bent,  this  was  extremely  costly  and 
slow  beyond  your  belief.  Now  we  handle  this 
vast  tonnage  entirely  by  machinery.  Steam 
shovels  mine  the  ore;  it  flows  by  gravity  into 
great  vessels;  huge  unloaders  transfer^it  to  rail- 
road cars,  and  car  dumpers  empty  it  under  ore 
bridges — all  the  work  being  done  by  power  and 
at  a  speed  little  short  of  miraculous.  These  things 
were  all  unknown  a  half-century  ago.  They 
are  the  product  of  the  tireless  brains  and  the 
unflagging  energy  of  the  men  who  have  built  our 
industries  to  their  present  colossal  proportions. 

The  improvements  in  blast  furnace  construc- 
tion and  practice  referred  to  in  previous  para- 

45 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

graphs  had  much  of  their  inspiration  from  these 
changes  in  the  method  of  handling  ores.  With 
them  came  changes  in  size,  lines  and  equipment. 
These  changes  were  most  marked  during  the 
period  between  1860  and  1890.  In  1850  there 
were  few  furnaces  in  the  country  that  could 
produce  150  tons  of  iron  in  a  week,  and  the  aver- 
age did  not  reach  that  figure  until  about  1865. 
In  1890  a  furnace  at  the  Edgar  Thomson 
Works  built  under  the  design  of  Julian  Kennedy 
and  operated  under  the  direction  of  Captain 
Bill  Jones,  startled  the  world,  by  yielding  502 
tons  of  iron  in  one  day  and  2,462  tons  in  one 
week.  That  was  then  believed  to  be  the  limit 
of  production,  but  it  is  now  quite  usual  for 
stacks  to  exceed  this  figure,  and  there  are  a  few 
producing  600  tons  per  day. 

In  1860  the  total  output  of  pig  iron  in  the 
United  States  was  821,223  tons.  In  1890  it 
had  risen  to  9,202,703  tons.  During  1916  there 
were  made  in  America  45,864,625  tons  of  furnace 
iron  of  all  grades. 

THE    IRON    AND    STEEL    INDUSTRY    IN    THE    SOUTH 

The  remarkable  growth  of  Iron  and  Steel 
manufacture  in  the  South  deserves  almost  a 

46 


JULIAN   KENNEDY 

To  Whose   Engineering  Genius  the  World's 
Progress  Owes  Much. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

separate  paper,  but  I  understand  it  must  only 
be  a  feature  of  my  address. 

The  subject  has  been  treated  by  many 
writers:  the  late  James  M.  Swank,  E.  A.  Smith, 
Miss  Armes  of  Birmingham  and  others.  A 
paper  read  by  James  Bowron,  at  the  long  to  be 
remembered  meeting  of  the  Institute  in  Birm- 
ingham, Alabama,  is  quite  complete  and  should 
be  read  by  everyone  desiring  to  be  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  Southern  industry. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  differentiate  the 
South  metallurgically.  Mason  &  Dixon's  line 
and  all  East  of  the  Mississippi,  except  Florida, 
Mississippi  and  Louisiana,  would  probably  in- 
clude it. 

Before  the  Civil  War  no  iron  was  made  in 
the  South  with  mineral  fuel,  but  charcoal  fur- 
naces were  quite  common,  as  well  as  forges. 
As  early  as  1725  a  furnace  was  built  in  Virginia 
on  property  owned  by  Captain  Washington, 
brother  of  George  Washington.  The  ruins  of  this 
furnace  can  still  be  seen.  Small  furnaces  were 
in  operation  through  the  Eighteenth  and  Nine- 
teenth centuries.  Ship-plates  of  exceptionally 
good  quality  were  made  in  the  South  before  the 
war  from  charcoal  blooms.  The  war  practi- 

48 


JAMES   M.   SWANK 

Author   and   Statistician.     For   More   than    Forty   Years   the 

Faithful  Secretary  and  Guiding  Spirit  of  The 

American   Iron   and   Steel   Association. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

cally  stopped  all  the  manufacture  of  material. 
Some  of  the  plants  were  taken  over  by  the  Fed- 
eral Government.  Dating  from  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War  a  great  deal  of  capital  was  invested 
in  Alabama  and  Georgia,  principally  English 
money. 

Sir  Lowthian  Bell,  a  world-wide  authority, 
visited  this  country  with  the  British  Iron  and  Steel 
Institute  in  1890,  and  he  said:  "I  will  not  say 
that  Birmingham  will  furnish  the  world  with 
iron,  but  I  will  say  that  she  will  eventually  dic- 
tate to  the  world  what  the  price  of  iron  shall  be". 

Incidentally  I  might  add  that  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  know  Sir  Lowthian  Bell,  he  having 
visited  the  United  States  on  several  occasions. 
His  work  "Chemical  Phenomena  of  Iron  Smelt- 
ing", is  a  classic  and  should  be  in  the  library  of 
every  iron  manufacturer  today. 

To  go  into  details  of  the  developments 
through  the  South  would  occupy  too  much  time. 
I  think  it  safe  to  say,  however,  that  the  first 
real  prosperity  in  the  Southern  industry  as  a 
whole,  dates  from  the  acquisition  of  the  prop- 
erty of  the  Tennessee  Coal,  Iron  &  Railroad 
Company  by  the  United  States  Steel  Corpora- 
tion. It  is  believed  by  many  in  position  to  know 

50 


SIR  LOWTHIAN  BELL 

An    Eminent    English    Metallurgical    Engineer    and    Writer. 

Author  of  "The  Chemical   Phenomena  of  Iron 

Smelting."     Father  of  Sir  Hugh  Bell. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

that  the  purchase  of  this  property  at  the  time 
when  it  was  acquired  saved  the  nation  from  a 
most  disastrous  panic,  or  rather  minimized  the 
panic  then  in  existence  and  eventually  stopped  it. 

The  Roane  Iron  Co.  built  blast  furnaces  at 
Rockwood,  Tenn.,  fully  a  half  century  ago  and 
they  are  still  in  successful  operation.  This 
same  company  undertook  the  manufacture  of 
Bessemer  steel  rails  at  Chattanooga  but  the  ex- 
periment was  a  failure.  Now  that  Open-hearth 
rails  have  practically  supplanted  Bessemer  steel 
rails,  it  is  interesting  to  report  that  the 
Tennessee  Coal,  Iron  &  Railroad  Company  is 
one  of  the  largest  manufacturers  of  Open-hearth 
steel  rails  in  the  United  States. 

The  Southern  ore  supply  is  practically  with- 
out limit.  Its  iron  contents  are  much  lower 
than  the  Lake  Superior  ores  but  the  South  has 
the  advantage  of  the  coal,  ore  and  flux  being  all 
in  close  proximity. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  General  Sher- 
man, whose  well  known  characterization  of  war 
has  become  fixed  and  emphasized  in  the  minds  of 
the  whole  world,  built  a  rolling  mill  at  Chatta- 
nooga in  1864  for  the  U.  S.  Government.  This 
was  used  for  rolling  iron  rails.  Steel  rails  were 

52 


JOSEPH  WHARTOX 

Pioneer  in  the  Manufacture  of  Iron  and  Steel  in  Eastern 
Pennsylvania  and   Xe\v  Jersey.     Founder  of 
The  Bethlehem  Steel   Company. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

then  unknown.  Iron  rails  from  all  the  roads 
in  the  South  which  were  accessible  to  the  North- 
ern armies  were  brought  to  this  mill,  cut  up 
and  made  into  piles  with  new  puddle  iron  for 
heads,  and  rerolled  into  sections  of  from  fifty  to 
sixty-five  pounds  per  yard.  The  manufacture 
of  iron  and  open-hearth  steel,  and  more  partic- 
ularly pig  iron,  is  today  in  a  very  prosperous 
condition  throughout  the  South  and  I  predict  for 
the  industries  in  that  section  increased  prosperity. 

An  additional  word  about  Captain  "Bill" 
Jones  will  not  be  out  of  place  in  this  connection, 
since  he  was,  in  a  sense,  the  South's  most  nota- 
ble contribution  to  the  progress  of  American 
iron  and  steel  industries.  Captain  Jones  was 
for  a  time  one  of  the  most  important  practi- 
cal men  in  the  Carnegie  plants.  He  was  an 
inventor,  and  a  manager  of  great  ability.  When 
the  Civil  War  broke  out  he  was  employed  at 
Chattanooga,  Tenn.,  but  on  account  of  his 
Northern  sympathies  felt  obliged  to  leave  that 
section.  He  worked  his  way  to  Johnstown, 
going  up  the  river  on  a  steamboat.  He  was 
killed  in  a  gas  explosion  at  one  of  the 
Carnegie  furnaces.  Had  it  not  been  for  his 
untimely  death  he  might  have  become  one  of 

54 


WM.  R.  JONES   (Capt.  Bill  Jones) 
A  Genius  in  Blast  Furnace  Practice.    A  Martyr  to  His  Zeal. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  country's  foremost  steel  men,  as  negotia- 
tions were  under  way  at  that  time  looking  to 
his  going  to  Youngstown  as  a  partner  in  a  steel 
plant  being  organized  there. 

Captain  Jones  was  not  only  an  able  practi- 
cal steel  man,  but  he  was  also  a  gallant  soldier, 
having  served  with  distinction  in  the  Civil  War, 
from  which  he  emerged  as  captain. 

DEVELOPMENT    OF    STEEL 

Naturally,  the  rapid  development  of  the  iron 
industry  was  closely  followed  by  an  equally 
impressive  growth  in  the  production  of  steel, 
and  this  was  characterized  by  the  same  aston- 
ishing increase  in  the  efficiency  of  machinery  and 
methods  for  fabricating  the  product  into  the 
countless  forms  in  which  it  is  marketed  today. 

It  is  uncertain  when  the  first  "blister"  steel 
was  made  in  America,  but  we  know  that  up  to 
1831  the  annual  output  had  been  less  than  2,000 
tons,  and  that  little  crucible  steel  had  been  made 
here.  In  1860  we  were  still  dependent  on  Europe 
for  practically  all  of  our  steel  requirements.  The 
Bessemer  process  was  then  known,  but  as  a  dis- 
pute had  arisen  over  its  invention  and  an  "in- 
terference" with  the  Bessemer  patents  had  been 

56 


JAMES   PARK  JR. 
A    Pioneer  in  the   Manufacture   of   Crucible   Steel. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

granted  to  William  Kelly,  the  process  was  not 
put  into  general  use  in  this  country  until  after 
1860. 

I  have  referred  to  Mr.  Kelly's  visits  to  James 
Ward  at  Niles  in  connection  with  his  invention. 
These  occurred  while  I  was  a  member  of  the 
Ward  household,  and  the  matter  was  discussed  at 
the  Ward  table.  On  one  of  these  visits  Mr.  Kelly 
was  much  exorcised  over  the  fact  that  he  had 
neglected  to  patent  his  discovery,  but  still  had 
great  hopes  that  he  would  yet  be  able  to  reap 
the  rewards  of  it,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Besse- 
mer had  been  granted  a  patent  a  few  days  be- 
fore his  application  was  filed.  I  cannot  recall 
the  date  of  this  occurrence,  but  it  must  have 
been  in  1857,  as  the  patents  were  granted  in 
this  country  in  1856. 

p»  As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  Bessemer  nor 
Kelly  is  entitled  to  the  honor  of  inventing  the 
Bessemer  steel  process.  Kelly  had,  years  before 
Bessemer  began  his  experiments,  conceived  the 
idea  of  decarburizing  iron  by  a  blast  of  air,  and 
had  actually  used  the  process  in  the  making 
of  iron  which  he  used  and  sold  in  place  of  that 
produced  in  the  refinery  and  run  out  fires  then 
employed.  Sir  Henry  Bessemer  conceived  the 

58 


DANIEL  J.  MORRELL 
Pioneer  of  the  Policy  of  Protection  to  American  Industries. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

same  idea  and  carried  it  out  with  a  much  more 
efficient  mechanical  appliance,  which  has  been 
changed  but  little  in  general  design  to  this  day; 
but  neither  of  these  men  were  able  to  make 
steel.  All  they  accomplished  was  to  remove 
from  pig  iron  the  silicon  and  carbon.  Robert 
Mushet  was  the  man  who  first  found  out  how 
to  make  Bessemer  steel  by  recarburizing  the  iron 
after  it  has  been  blown  in  a  converter.  Kelly 
reaped  very  little  benefit,  also,  but  he  will  al- 
ways be  regarded  by  Americans  as  the  actual 
discoverer  of  the  fundamental  element  in  this 
great  process,  and  the  little  converter  which  he 
had  made  at  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  and  used 
there  with  more  or  less  success  in  1861  and 
1862  is  an  enduring  monument  to  the  spirit  of 
discovery  and  the  persistent  efforts  which  have 
made  the  steel  business  what  it  is. 

The  manufacture  of  Bessemer  steel  did  not 
attain  any  headway  in  this  country  until  1867, 
but  when  it  did  finally  start,  its  results  were 
tremendous.  It  built  the  railroads  of  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  most  of  our  sky- 
scrapers, bridges  and  ships,  yet  in  spite  of  this 
fact,  it  now  seems  destined  to  give  place  to  an 
older  and  more  expensive  process,  that  of  the 

60 


ANDREW  WHEELER 
Treasurer  of  The  American  Iron  &  Steel  Association. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

open-hearth;  and  this  in  turn,  will  probably 
yield  supremacy  to  the  electric  furnace,  so  rapid 
are  the  changes  and  so  eager  the  industry  to 
keep  pace  with  modern  knowledge  and  invention. 

No  less  remarkable  are  the  changes  that  sixty 
years  have  witnessed  in  the  fabrication  of  iron 
and  steel.  When  I  first  entered  the  business 
the  plant  of  my  employer  consisted  of  a  small 
blast  furnace,  a  refinery  forge  or  two,  and  a 
mill  upon  which  we  rolled  iron  bars  for  various 
purposes.  After  the  pig  iron  had  been  refined 
in  the  furnace — a  process  somewhat  like  that  of 
puddling,  it  was  rolled  into  muck  bar.  This 
was  then  made  up  into  bundles,  reheated  and 
rolled  on  a  primitive  form  of  bar  mill.  My 
first  contribution  to  the  efficiency  of  the  plant 
was  a  plan  to  regulate  the  size  of  these  bundles 
so  that  they  would  produce  a  bar  of  the  size 
and  length  desired  and  thus  eliminate  excessive 
waste  from  scrap  as  each  piece  was  rolled.  It 
was  recognized  as  a  new  idea  and  Mr.  Ward 
complimented  me  highly. 

The  first  bar  iron  rolled  in  the  United  States 
was  produced  at  Plumsack,  Fayette  County,  Pa., 
in  1817.  The  first  puddling  in  this  country  was 
done  at  the  Boston  Iron  Works  in  1825.  The 

62 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  JONES 

Founder    of    The    Jones    &    Laughlin    Steel    Company. 
Pioneer  in  the  Development  of  Iron  and 
Steel  Manufacture  in  Pittsburgh. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

first  successful  American  blast  furnace  of  which 
there  is  record  was  built  at  Lynn,  Mass.,  in  1645. 

The  first  successful  iron  working  plant  in 
America  seems  to  have  been  established  at  Lynn 
about  the  same  time  the  first  furnace  was  built. 
Only  cast  iron  articles  were  produced  at  first,  but 
a  forge  was  started  in  1648,  or  three  years  later. 

The  first  iron  works  in  New  York  State  were 
built  at  Ancram  Creek  about  1740.  Soon  after- 
wards a  blast  furnace  was  erected  in  theRamapo 
Mountains,  and  before  the  Revolution  this  had 
been  consolidated  with  a  forge  and  operated 
under  the  name  of  the  Sterling  Iron  Works.  It 
was  here  that  the  anchors  were  forged  for  the 
first  ships  to  fly  the  American  flag,  and  here  also 
that  a  great  chain  was  made  and  stretched  across 
the  Hudson  River  to  prevent  British  gunboats 
from  passing  West  Point,  in  1788.  That  chain 
still  holds  the  honor  of  being  the  largest  ever 
forged,  a  fact  which  shows  that  our  ancestors 
could  rise  to  great  efforts  when  inspired  by 
patriotism,  even  as  we  are  doing  today. 

I  occasionally  go  into  the  blooming  mills 
at  the  Brier  Hill  plant,  where  we  break  down  a 
steel  ingot  in  less  than  a  minute,  and  mentally 

64 


ROBERT  W.  HUNT 

A  Noted   Mechanical  Engineer,  who   Rolled  the  First  Com- 
mercial Order  of  Steel  Rails  Filled  in  this 
Country  at  Johnstown,  Pennsylvania. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

compare  the  massive  machinery  in  use  in  mod- 
ern steel  plants  with  the  equipment  of  those 
days.  Still  we  had  achieved  a  good  deal  even 
then.  The  first  successful  rolling  mill  in  this 
country  was  about  as  primitive  compared  with 
the  equipment  of  sixty  years  ago  as  was  the  old 
Ward  mill  when  compared  with  a  modern 
rolling  mill. 

The  pioneers  started  with  nothing.  We  had 
at  least  something  to  work  with.  Both  they 
and  we  of  this  generation  have  made  the  best 
of  our  opportunities,  and  the  result  is  the  ma- 
jestic industry  which  today  stands  without  a 
rival  in  the  efficiency  of  its  processes,  in  the  zeal 
of  its  operatives,  and  in  its  far-reaching  effect 
on  human  happiness  and  welfare. 

Much  of  this  great  progress  has  been  un- 
doubtedly due  to  the  men  who  have  been  en- 
gaged in  the  iron  and  steel  business.  In  justice 
they  must  be  given  credit  with  a  degree  of 
enterprise  found  in  no  other  industry.  They 
have  been  willing  at  all  times  to  face  ruin  for 
the  sake  of  adventure  into  new  and  more -prom- 
ising fields.  They  have  rewarded  courage, 
vision  and  genius  as  no  other  industry  has  re- 
warded these  things.  They  have  constantly 

66 


J.  A.  CAMPBELL 

President   of   The  Youngstown   Sheet  &   Tube  Company. 
Commanding    Figure    Among    Executives    who    Have 
More  Recently  Achieved  National  Reputation. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

looked  forward  to  higher  achievements,  scorning 
the  contentment  that  sometimes  brings  stagna- 
nation  to  a  great  industry. 

All  of  this  progress,  however,  cannot  be 
credited  to  the  men  of  the  industry.  Some  of 
it  was  undoubtedly  due  to  the  greatness  of  the 
country,  the  magnificence  of  our  natural  re- 
sources, and  the  enterprise  of  our  people  as  a 
whole.  In  no  other  country,  in  the  world,  for 
instance,  could  there  have  been  a  demand  for 
railroad  expansion  such  as  to  require  500,000 
miles  of  steel  rails  in  less  than  twenty  years,  as 
was  the  case  in  this  country  between  1865  and 
1885. 

The  first  steel  rail  rolled  in  America  from 
American  steel  was  made  at  the  North  Chicago 
Rolling  Mill  on  May  24,  1865,  from  steel  ingots 
made  at  Wyandotte,  Mich.  The  ingots  were 
made  under  the  direction  of  William  F.  Durfee, 
who  had  built  the  first  successful  Bessemer 
converter  at  Wyandotte.  Steel  made  in  this 
converter  was  used  in  rolling  the  rail  referred  to. 
I  was  attending  a  meeting  of  the  American  Iron 
and  Steel  Association  in  Chicago  at  the  time 
and  went  with  the  party  that  visited  the  works 
to  see  the  operation  repeated  the  following  day. 

68 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Three  rails  were  rolled  on  each  occasion,  and  a 
part  of  one  of  them  was  cut  off  and  sent  to  the 
meeting,  where  it  naturally  attracted  much  atten- 
tion. By  1890  more  than  19,000,000  tons  of 
steel  rails  had  been  rolled  in  this  country, 
practically  all  of  them  from  Bessemer  steel.  In 
1916,  which,  as  you  all  know,  was  not  a  good 
year  for  the  rail  business,  the  output  was 
2,854,518  tons.  Of  this  production  in  1916, 
2,269,600  tons  were  rolled  from  open-hearth  steel, 
showing  the  great  development  of  that  process 
during  the  intervening  years. 

Although  Mr.  Durfee  deserves  the  honor  of 
having  built  the  first  successful  Bessemer  con- 
verter in  this  country,  the  steel  made  in  it  was 
actually  an  infringement  on  the  Bessemer  pat- 
ents, which  were  then  in  dispute.  These  patents 
were  afterward  bought  by  the  firm  of  Winslow, 
Griswold  and  Holley,  who  built  the  first  com- 
mercial plant  for  making  Bessemer  steel  at  Troy. 
Mr.  Holley  helped  to  develop  the  original  con- 
verter at  Wyandotte  until  it  was  on  a  commercial 
basis.  He  later  assisted  in  the  building  of  a 
plant  at  the  Cambria  Iron  Works  and  next 
built  the  Bessemer  plant  at  the  Pennsylvania 
Steel  Works,  which  was  erected  and  operated 

69 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

under  the  combined  patents  of  Bessemer  and 
Kelly,  who  had  in  the  meantime,  reached  an 
agreement.  There  were  only  thirteen  plants 
built  in  this  country  down  to  1881,  but  from  that 
time  the  growth  of  the  manufacture  of  Bessemer 
Steel  in  America  was  very  rapid.  The  first  com- 
mercial order  of  steel  rails  filled  in  this  country 
was  rolled  by  the  Cambria  Iron  Company  in 
1867,  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Robert  W.  Hunt. 

WELLMAN    DEVELOPED    THE    OPEN-HEARTH 

There  has  been  an  impression  that  William 
F.  Durfee  had  much  to  do  with  the  early  develop- 
ment of  the  open-hearth  process  in  this  country, 
but  this  seems  to  be  an  error.  He  was  largely 
occupied  with  the  Bessemer  process,  but  the 
credit  of  building  the  first  successful  open- 
hearth  of  the  Siemens-Martin  type  is  due  to 
Mr.  Samuel  T.  Wellman,  of  the  Wellman- 
Seaver-Morgan  Company.  Mr.  Wellman  built 
the  first  really  successful  American  open-hearth 
furnace  at  the  Bay  State  Iron  Works,  South 
Boston,  in  the  latter  part  of  1869.  He  had  been 
assistant  engineer  for  Mr.  J.  T.  Potts,  who  had 
been  sent  to  this  country  by  C.  W.  Siemens  to 
assist  in  the  starting  of  an  open-hearth  furnace 
at  Trenton  for  Cooper,  Hewitt  &  Company,  who 

70 


SAMUEL  T.  WELLMAX 

Pioneer    in    Steel    Manufacture.      First    to    Successfully 
Operate  the  Open-Hearth  Furnace  in  America. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

had  bought  the  Siemens  rights.  This  furnace 
had  not  been  successful,  owing  to  trouble  with 
the  gas  producers  and  other  difficulties,  and  was 
finally  abandoned.  In  working  on  this  furnace 
Mr.  Wellman  acquired  experience  that  made  it 
possible  for  him  to  correct  errors  in  design  that 
had  proven  fatal  to  the  Cooper-Hewitt  experi- 
ment. It  was  at  South  Boston  that  the  first 
ferro-manganese  was  made  in  this  country.  A 
full  account  of  this  interesting  stage  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Siemens-Martin  regenerative 
furnace  was  given  by  Mr.  Wellman  in  a  paper 
read  before  the  American  Society  of  Mechanical 
Engineers  in  1901,  at  which  time  he  was  Presi- 
dent of  that  body.  Like  almost  all  great  im- 
provements the  open-hearth  furnace  involved 
much  costly  experiment  and  many  heart-break- 
ing failures.  The  first  open-hearth  furnaces  had 
a  capacity  of  only  five  or  six  tons  at  a  heat,  and 
they  had  none  of  the  mechanical  appliances  for 
pouring  or  for  casting  ingots  now  in  use.  Devel- 
opment both  as  to  size  and  mechanical  operation, 
has  been  gradual,  and  but  little  change  has  been 
made  in  the  method  of  pre-heating  the  fuel  gases. 

TARIFF  PLAYS  AN  IMPORTANT  PART 

To  one  who  can  recall  the  early  years  of  iron 
and   steel   manufacture  there  is   nothing  more 

72 


CHARLES  E.  SMITH 
First  Statistician  of  the  American  Iron  Trade. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

inspiring  than  the  ceaseless  effort  of  men  engaged 
in  the  industry  to  find  better  and  more  economi- 
cal methods  of  producing  iron  and  steel.  To 
this  must  be  ascribed  in  large  part  the  phenome- 
nal advances  made  in  America,  which  has  led 
the  world  in  the  perfection  of  metallurgical 
processes  and  the  adaptation  of  mechanical 
appliances  for  these  processes. 

In  like  manner  there  is  no  question  that  a 
part  of  the  development  was  due  to  the  tariff 
policy  which  for  a  great  portion  of  this  period 
encouraged  enterprise  by  protecting  the  strug- 
gling iron  and  steel  industries  against  compe- 
tition from  abroad  and  assuring  reward  for 
energy  and  ability  expended  in  this  direction. 

You  will  pardon  me  if  I  claim  a  small  part 
in  this,  for  it  was  my  privilege  to  be  consulted 
freely  by  William  McKinley  during  the  period 
in  which  he  labored  so  faithfully  and  effectively 
for  wise  tariff-legislation,  as  well  as  to  enjoy  his 
personal  friendship  and  confidence  during  his 
lifetime  as  well  as  during  his  administration. 
One  of  the  most  gratifying  tasks  of  my  life  has 
been  the  effort  to  repay  in  some  small  measure 
the  debt  owed  by  the  industries  of  America  to 
this  statesman,  whose  broad  vision  had  so  much 

74 


WILLIAM  McKIXLEY 

The  Most  Prominent  Advocate  of  the   Policy  of  Protection 

to  American  Industries.     Twenty-fifth  President 

of  the  United  States. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

to  do  with  our  national  growth,  by  conceiving, 
planning,  and,  with  the  help  of  my  friends  in 
these  industries,  erecting  to  his  memory  at  Niles, 
Ohio,  on  the  spot  where  he  was  born  and  where 
we  played  together  as  boys,  one  of  the  noblest 
and  most  beautiful  memorials  on  the  American 
continent.  This  structure  was  dedicated  on 
October  5th,  1917,  and  I  hope  you  will  permit 
me  at  this  time,  although  it  may  seem  foreign 
to  my  subject,  to  extend  to  every  member  of  the 
Institute  an  invitation  to  visit  it.  It  has  cost 
approximately  half  a  million  dollars  and  is  ar- 
tistically worthy  of  its  purpose. 

I  have  had  the  honor  to  be  consulted  by  the 
men  who  framed  every  tariff  bill  passed  by  a 
Republican  Congress  since  1875,  and  have  tried 
to  consult  with  the  framers  of  every  Demo- 
cratic tariff  bill  during  the  same  period.  In 
preparing  data  for  this  paper  I  came  across  a 
voluminous  report  on  industrial  conditions 
prepared  by  me  in  1912  at  the  special  request 
of  William  H.  Taft,  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  for  the  use  of  the  Ways  and  Means 
committee  at  work  on  the  tariff  changes  contem- 
plated at  that  time.  This  document,  was  sub- 
mitted to  Mr.  James  A.  Farrell,  and  it  was  thor- 

76 


JAMES  A.  FARRELL 

President  of  The  United  States   Steel  Corporation.     An 
American    Who    Thinks  in    International    Terms. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

oughly  endorsed  by  him,  so  it  must  have  had 
some  merit.  You  may  rest  assured  that  in 
these  activities,  whether  they  were  solicited,  or, 
as  was  sometimes  the  case,  not  over-enthus- 
iastically  received,  I  always  had  in  mind  the 
welfare  of  the  country  through  its  industries, 
and  I  am  sure  that  these  did  not  suffer  from 
anything  I  said  or  wrote  upon  the  subject. 

BROAD    VISION    OF    LEADERSHIP 

Still  more  helpful  was  the  influence  of  the 
organizations  created  and  fostered  by  men  of 
vision  in  the  two  industries.  These  men  saw, 
long  before  it  came  to  be  generally  realized,  that 
the  true  basis  of  success  in  manufacturing  enter- 
prises was  not  so  much  unreasoning  competition 
as  sensible  co-operation,  and  they  early  put 
their  views  into  effect  by  the  organization  of  such 
associations  as  the  American  Pig  Iron  Associa- 
tion and  the  Bessemer  Pig  Iron  Association,  both 
of  which  it  was  my  privilege  for  many  years  to 
serve  as  president,  together  with  The  American 
Iron  and  Steel  Association  and  our  own  great 
Association,  The  American  Iron  and  Steel 
Institute.  It  would  be  hard  for  anyone  to  estimate 
what  has  been  accomplished  by  these  organiza- 
tions toward  the  stimulation  of  progress  and  the 
conservation  of  resources  in  these  two  lines. 

78 


SAMUEL  MATHER 

Director   and    one    of    the    Founders    of   The    United    States 
Steel  Corporation.     Leading  Spirit  in  the  Devel- 
opment of  Lake  Superior  Ore  Industry. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Even  those  least  friendly  to  the  iron  and 
steel  interests  must  acknowledge  that  they  have 
led  all  others  in  this  country  in  the  way  of 
advanced  ideas  along  sociological  lines.  This  has 
been  particularly  true  of  The  American  Iron  and 
Steel  Institute  under  the  able  administration  of 
Judge  Gary.  We  have  been  the  first  to  realize 
the  great  truth  that  business  success  depends 
upon  co-operation  rather  than  upon  competi- 
tion, a  truth  now  generally  admitted.  We  have 
been  the  most  generous  of  all  the  industries  in 
dividing  with  labor  the  rewards  of  business.  We 
have  led  all  other  industries  in  the  matter  of 
safety,  sanitation  and  welfare  work,  and  we 
have  done  more  than  any  other  to  establish 
in  the  public  mind  the  fact  that  the  interests  of 
labor  and  capital  are  identical,  the  prosperity  of 
one  involving  the  prosperity  of  the  other,  and 
that  both  owe  to  the  public  duties  equal  to  those 
they  owe  to  themselves. 

THE  UNITED  STATES  STEEL  CORPORATION 

The  history  of  the  American  iron  and  steel 
industry  has  known  no  incident  of  more  far- 
reaching  importance  than  the  organization  of 
the  United  States  Steel  Corporation.  It  is  the 

80 


HOX.  ELBERT  H.  GARY 
The  Foremost  Figure  in  the  Iron  and  Steel  World  of  Today. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

greatest  industrial  and  financial  aggregation  in 
the  world,  producing  a  larger  tonnage  of  steel 
and  iron  than  any  single  country  on  the  globe 
except  the  United  States. 

The  United  States  Steel  Corporation  was 
formed  as  the  result  of  a  growing  conviction 
among  men  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  iron 
and  steel  that  some  method  would  have  to  be  de- 
vised whereby  greater  efficiency  could  be  obtained 
as  well  as  more  stable  market  conditions  secured 
if  the  remarkable  progress  of  this  country  along 
these  lines  was  to  be  maintained  and  the  competi- 
tion of  foreign  countries  successfully  met.  History 
relates  it  was  conceived  in  the  brain  of  Elbert  H. 
Gary,  who  was  then  President  of  the  Federal  Steel 
Company,  but  it  was  a  long  time  in  being  born. 

As  production  mounted  during  the  years 
between  1870  and  1890,  conditions  became 
exceedingly  bad.  Ruthless  competition  was  the 
order  of  the  day.  Price-cutting,  unfair  methods 
of  business,  and  all  the  evils  attendant  on  the 
desire  to  secure  markets  became  so  prevalent 
that  an  effort  was  made  to  reach  some  sort  of 
stability  by  the  famous  "pools",  which  many  of 
you  will  remember  with  amusement,  because 
their  only  effect  was  to  show  that  agreements  of 

82 


J.   P.   MORGAN 

The    Most    Eminent    Financier    of    the    Nineteenth    Century. 

Prominent  in  the  Formation  of  The  United 

States  Steel  Corporation. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

this  kind  without  the  proper  spirit  behind  them 
are  even  less  than  "scraps  of  paper".  The  first 
serious  effort  to  improve  conditions  was  the  com- 
bination of  a  number  of  companies  producing 
different  lines  of  finished  steel.  Several  of  these 
eame  into  being  in  the  late  nineties,  but  they 
went  after  one  another  in  precisely  the  same 
spirit  that  the  original  companies  manifested, 
and  the  only  result  was  competition  fiercer  and 
more  relentless  than  before. 

Judge  Gary  had  tried  to  organize  a  great 
combination,  and  had  turned  for  financial  assis- 
tance to  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan,  then  the  only  man 
in  the  United  States  who  could  influence  the 
necessary  capital.  Morgan  was  unresponsive 
and  nothing  was  done.  Finally,  however  Judge 
Gary  succeeded  in  interesting  Andrew  Carnegie, 
then  a  commanding  figure  in  the  steel  world. 
Carnegie  doubtless  realized  the  fact  that  the 
policies  followed  up  to  that  time  were  unwhole- 
some, and  he  was  willing  to  sell  out  to  such  a 
combination,  because  he  felt  that,  sooner  or 
later,  his  great  company  would  find  a  rival,  or 
combination  of  rivals  that  would  be  its  equal, 
and  then  would  come  a  battle  royal  in  which  he 
might  suffer  with  the  rest. 

84 


ANDREW  CARNEGIE 

For    Many    Years    a    Dominant    Figure    in    the    Iron 
and   Steel  Industries. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

On  the  evening  of  December  12,  1900,  two 
New  York  men,  both  warm  friends  of  Carnegie, 
arranged  a  dinner  in  New  York.  To  this  they 
invited  Morgan  and  others  among  whom  was 
Charles  M.  Schwab,  then  President  of  the  Carne- 
gie Steel  Company.  Schwab  made  at  that  dinner 
the  speech  of  his  life.  He  painted  the  possi- 
bilities of  such  a  corporation  as  Judge  Gary 
had  been  trying  to  form,  and  painted  them  in 
such  vivid  colors  that,  after  the  dinner  was  over, 
Morgan  took  him  to  one  side  and  spent  the 
greater  part  of  the  evening  in  talking  over  the 
matter.  The  result  was  that  the  financier's 
hesitation  vanished  and  he  asked  Schwab  to 
learn  Carnegie's  price.  This  price  was  slightly 
more  than  $492,000,000  the  largest  sum  that 
had  ever  been  paid  for  anything  bought  in  the 
world  up  to  that  time. 

The  Steel  Corporation  was  chartered  early 
in  1901.  It  began  business  with  ten  of  the  larg- 
est companies  then  in  existence.  It  had  a  capital 
of  $1,404,000,000.  Its  properties  consisted  of  161 
separate  plants,  comprising  73  blast  furnaces, 
steel  works  and  rolling  mills,  vast  holdings  of 
ore  lands,  coal  and  limestone,  112  steamships, 
and  1,000  miles  of  railroads.  Its  productive 

86 


CHARLES  M.  SCHWAB 

A  Most  Interesting  Figure  in  the  American  Steel  and  Iron 
Industries.    Author,  Orator,  Musician — A  Genius  in  Steel. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

capacity  was  estimated  at  7,400,000  tons  of  pig 
iron,  9,400,000  tons  of  steel  ingots,  and  7,900,000 
tons  of  finished  steel  per  annum.  Its  board  of 
directors  included  practically  all  of  the  very 
wealthy  men  then  in  the  United  States,  and  it 
had  on  its  hands  the  biggest  problem  of  industrial 
operation  ever  undertaken  by  any  set  of  men. 

The  Steel  Corporation  was  regarded  pessi- 
mistically by  most  of  the  practical  steel  men  of 
that  time.  It  was  believed  to  be  top-heavy 
and  in  the  light  of  our  experience  and  methods 
of  business,  most  of  the  independents  were  much 
afraid  of  it.  We  did  not  then  appreciate  the 
high  ideals  of  the  man  who  first  conceived  it. 
Nor  did  we  understand  that  part  of  his  dream, 
now  realized,  was  an  entirely  new  principle  in 
business  conduct.  The  idea  of  co-operation, 
rather  than  competition,  in  business  was  then 
untried  and  most  of  us  thought  that  it  was 
impractical,  We  have  seen  it  worked  out,  and 
we  now  know  that  this  idea  is  basically  sound. 
We  have  had  opportunity  to  learn  by  experience 
that  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  man- 
aged as  it  has  been,  has  been  a  most  excellent 
thing  for  the  iron  and  steel  industries  in  this 
country  and  the  world,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 

88 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

there  is  not  an  independent  steel  company  which 
has  not  benefited  by  the  broad  policy  it  inau- 
gurated and  made  possible  for  all  of  us. 

The  effect  of  the  corporation's  activities  and 
its  policy  has  been  good  from  every  point  of 
view.  It  has  benefited  its  workingmen,  the 
public  and  its  stockholders.  Many  new  com- 
panies which  have  been  started  since  it  began 
business  have  found  it  an  actual  aid  toward 
their  success. 

So  far  as  results  are  concerned,  the  Steel 
Corporation  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
successful  enterprises  in  American  history.  It 
has  decreased  the  number  of  steel  works  under 
its  management  by  dismantling  several  that 
were  unprofitable  in  operation,  so  that  it  now 
operates  146  plants,  instead  of  149,  as  at  the 
beginning;  but  it  has  increased  its  productive 
capacity  fully  100  per  cent.  At  the  same  time, 
owing  to  the  phenomenal  growth  of  the  industry 
during  this  period,  it  now  controls  a  far  less 
proportion  of  production  in  this  country  than 
at  the  time  of  its  entrance  into  the  business, 
its  production  being  only  about  45  per  cent 
of  the  whole  of  1916. 

89 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Perhaps  the  greatest  service  rendered  to 
the  steel  industry  of  America  by  this  great 
corporation  has  been  the  extension  of  our  export 
trade.  Under  the  able  direction  of  President 
Farrell  this  branch  of  the  market,  formerly  neg- 
lected, has  been  studiously  cultivated,  with 
marked  advantage  to  the  reputation  of  American 
iron  and  steel  products  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 

The  story  of  the  United  States  Steel  Cor- 
poration forms  one  of  the  most  interesting  chap- 
ters in  the  history  of  the  iron  and  steel  business 
of  America  and  will  always  be  one  of  the  im- 
portant happenings  in  the  industrial  and  finan- 
cial history  of  the  world.  It  has  established  the 
fame  of  Elbert  H.  Gary,  Chairman  of  its  Board 
of  Directors,  since  the  beginning;  J.  P.  Morgan, 
whose  financial  genius  and  power  made  it  possi- 
ble; Geo.  W.  Perkins,  who,  as  chairman  of  its 
finance  committee,  found  arduous  tasks  in  its 
first  years;  Chas.  M.  Schwab,  who,  as  its  first 
president,  piloted  it  through  the  troublesome 
period  of  its  organization;  William  Ellis  Corey, 
who  was  its  president  for  years;  James  A.  Far- 
rell, now  occupying  that  responsible  position; 
and  many  others. 

90 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Among  those  who  have  done  most  to  make 
it  a  success  without  any  effort  to  claim  credit  is 
Henry  Clay  Frick.  Even  before  Mr.  Frick  be- 
gan to  actively  devote  his  attention  to  the 
corporation  he  was  on  its  board  of  directors 
and  was  recognized  as  the  most  forceful  indivi- 
ual  in  the  trade.  He  had,  in  his  relations  with 
Andrew  Carnegie,  done  inestimable  service  in 
blazing  the  way  for  a  better  understanding  of 
business  honor  and  rectitude.  These  relations 
and  their  outcome  form  an  incident  so  striking 
that  I  should  like  to  say  something  further  con- 
cerning them.  However,  to  those  familiar  with 
the  matter  it  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  they 
probably  had  indirectly  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
the  formation  of  the  Steel  Corporation,  and  that 
their  outcome  illustrates  the  fact  that,  in  the 
steel  business,  as  in  other  walks  of  life, 
ability  usually  wins.  Mr.  Frick  remains  one 
of  the  most  important  figures  in  the  industry, 
and  his  work  on  the  Finance  Committee  of 
the  Corporation  has  added  to  the  universal 
esteem  and  respect  in  which  he  is  held  by  all 
who  are  familiar  with  the  industrial  and  finan- 
cial history  of  our  country. 

91 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

One  of  the  things  of  which  the  iron  and  steel 
industries  have  a  just  right  to  be  proud  is  the 
present  attitude  of  our  government  toward  them. 
In  times  of  peace  Washington  has  shown  a  dis- 
position to  amuse  itself  and  entertain  the  public 
with  efforts  to  regulate  these  corporations,  but 
in  time  of  war  it  turns  to  them  without  hesi- 
tation, finding  them  eager  to  render  every  serv- 
ice. At  this  time  the  government,  through 
the  War  Industries  Board,  has  prescribed  cer- 
tain basic  prices  for  steel  products,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  has  shown  its  faith  in  the  manufac- 
turers themselves  by  asking  them,  through  the 
Iron  and  Steel  Institute,  to  arrange  the  details 
by  which  these  prices  may  be  made  an  actual 
fact.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  fixing  of 
prices  has  actually  been  done  by  patriotic  man- 
ufacturers themselves,  rather  than  by  the  gov- 
ernment, and  the  manner  in  which  the  interests 
of  the  nation  have  been  given  preference  is  a 
striking  testimonial  to  the  high  ideals  existing 
among  these  men. 

FRIENDS  WHO  HAVE  MADE  GOOD 

It  has  been  my  privilege  to  enjoy  the  per- 
sonal acquaintance  and  friendship  of  almost 
every  man  who  has  been  prominent  in  iron 

92 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

and  steel  in  America,  as  well  as  of  many  of  those 
who  have  achieved  fame  abroad.  Among  these 
are  some  who  have  closed  long  and  honorable 
careers,  and  others  who  are  still  in  the  heyday 
of  their  usefulness;  but,  even  more  gratifying 
to  me  is  the  fact  that  in  my  experience  it  has 
been  my  pleasure  to  have  in  a  certain  sense  been 
tutor  and  friend  to  many  young  men  who  have 
since  proven  their  ability  and  energy  by  reach- 
ing positions  of  high  usefulness  and  reputation. 
Julian  Kennedy,  whose  career  as  an  engineer 
has  benefited  the  iron  and  steel  industries  in 
all  parts  of  the  world,  came  to  the  Mahoning 
Valley  as  a  young  man  just  out  of  college,  and, 
while  we  thought  he  was  rather  too  fond  of 
rowing  a  boat  on  the  little  river  there,  he  was 
evidently  not  wasting  his  time  in  fishing  while 
doing  so.  Mr.  C.  A.  Meissner,  who  is  known  to 
most  of  you  as  chairman  of  the  coke  committee  of 
the  corporation,  was  our  first  chemist  at  Brier 
Hill,  and  the  first  chemist,  for  that  matter,  em- 
ployed at  any  of  the  furnaces  in  that  locality. 
While  with  us  he  distinguished  himself  by  mak- 
ing first-class  "Scotch"  pig  iron  out  of  Lake 
Superior  ores,  and  while  we  had  at  first  to  keep 
a  little  imported  Scotch  pig  around  for  the 

93 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

benefit  of  doubting  Thomases,  it  was  not  long 
until  "Brier  Hill  Scotch"  was  in  strong  demand 
all  over  the  country.  Mr.  W.  B.  Schiller,  Mr. 
F.  B.  Richards  and  the  late  Jasper  Sheadle,  are 
also  Brier  Hill  by-products. 

I  would  like,  also,  to  claim  credit  for  our 
young  friend,  Charlie  Schwab,  but  Carnegie  got 
hold  of  him  first,  and  Andy  always  knew  a  good 
thing  when  he  found  it.  Nevertheless,  I  wish 
to  pay  the  compliment  to  Mr.  Schwab  of  saying 
that  he  could  hardly  have  done  very  much 
better  had  he  been  educated  at  Brier  Hill.  He 
has  built  up  in  the  Bethlehem  Steel  Company, 
an  institution  which  is  a  Krupp  and  a  Creusot 
combined,  with  some  advantages  over  both. 
So  long  as  we  have  young  men  coming  on  with 
the  brains  and  energy  of  those  who  are  to  be 
found  in  the  various  iron  and  steel  organiza- 
tions, the  future  of  these  industries  in  America 
is  safe,  and  the  country  is  safe  also. 

It  has  been  said  that:  "Youth  longs  and  man- 
hood strives,  but  age  remembers",  and  this  is  my 
excuse  for  indulging  in  reminiscences  before  a 
body  of  busy  men  intensely  interested  in  the 
present  and  the  future.  To  me  it  seems  that 
this  future  can  be  gauged  accurately  from  the 

94 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

present  and  the  past.  The  early  days  of  iron 
making  in  this  country  are  radiant  with  the 
spirit  of  progress  and  of  patriotism.  This 
spirit  had  no  small  part  in  making  America 
monarch  of  all  the  forges,  and  it  has  not  died 
out.  We  can  depend  on  it  to  still  preserve  the 
wonderful  lead  we  have  attained  in  production, 
and  to  maintain  the  institutions  to  which  we 
owe  so  much  of  all  that  is  good  for  us  and  for 
the  world. 

It  is  as  true  today  as  it  ever  was  that  the 
civilization  of  a  people  may  be  told  by  their 
progress  in  the  use  of  iron  and  steel,  and  I  hope 
the  time  will  never  come  when  America  will 
no  longer  lead  all  other  nations  in  this  respect. 
I  hope  also  that  the  time  will  never  come  when 
men  in  our  industry  will  show  less  public  spirit 
or  less  patriotism  than  in  the  past.  In  the 
present  crisis  of  our  national  life  we  need  the 
high  purpose  and  the  unselfish  devotion  to 
country  that  our  members  have  shown.  We  need 
the  courage  and  vision  of  Judge  Gary,  our 
President,  and  we  need  the  energy  and  ability  of 
our  younger  manufacturers  as  never  before. 

95 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

THE  KAISER  MISCALCULATED 

In  1916  I  spent  six  weeks  in  France  and 
England  with  the  American  Industrial  Com- 
mission. Had  not  what  I  saw  there  been 
sufficient  to  impress  upon  me  the  importance 
of  the  American  Iron  and  Steel  Industries  in  the 
world's  struggle  against  despotism  and  scientific 
barbarism,  the  statements  made  to  me  by  the 
leaders  of  the  French  and  English  people  would 
have  done  so.  Without  the  magnificent  re- 
sources of  our  mines  and  mills  the  Allied  cause 
would  have  been  lost  long  ago.  The  genius, 
the  energy,  and  the  rectitude  of  purpose  that 
made  possible  the  splendid  industrial  develop- 
ment of  America  will  also  make  possible  the 
preservation  of  democracy.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  whatever  on  this  point.  Our  Govern- 
ment was  not  ready,  but  our  mills  were  prepared. 
The  biggest  thing  the  Kaiser  overlooked  in  his 
calculations  was  the  American  Iron  and  Steel 
industry. 

It  has  been  our  great  privilege,  gentlemen 
of  the  Institute,  to  render  aid  on  behalf  of  the 
world  in  the  supreme  hour  of  history.  We  are 
now  called  upon  to  make  sacrifices  in  the  same 
great  cause,  recently  brought  more  directly  home 

97 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

to  America,  but  scarcely  more  ours  now  than  it 
was  at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  That  we 
shall  do  so  with  energy  and  devotion  charac- 
teristic of  our  history  and  in  keeping  with  our 
traditions  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt. 

Aside  from  the  duty  to  aid  our  country  in 
every  way  possible  by  the  efficient  operation  of 
our  properties  and  the  ready  co-operation  with 
the  Government  already  shown,  our  chief  duty, 
as  I  see  it,  is  to  preserve  the  traditions  and  to 
continue  the  splendid  record  of  the  industries  in 
our  care.  There  is  still  much  to  be  done.  The 
limit  of  advancement  has  not  been  reached.  In 
the  future  lies  opportunity  as  great  as  that  of 
the  past.  It  must  be  grasped  by  younger  men, 
for  we  older  ones  have  reached  the  summit  from 
which  the  prospect  most  alluring  lies  behind  us. 
If  the  facts  and  reminiscences  to  which  you  have 
so  patiently  listened  today  give  you  inspiration 
to  carry  out  the  traditions  and  to  emulate  past 
performance  of  the  great  industries  in  which 
you  are  fortunate  to  be  engaged,  they  will  have 
accomplished  their  purpose  and  I  shall  have 
my  reward. 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

SUPPLEMENT (  APPENDIX  ) 

Because  of  the  very  general  interest  in  the 
organization  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corpor- 
ation, as  well  as  because  of  the  large  part  in  the 
industries  taken  by  many  of  those  connected 
with  the  Corporation  in  official  capacities,  I 
have  deemed  it  proper  to  include  the  following 
information  concerning  that  organization. 

From  the  statistics  given  herewith  it  will  be 
seen  that  there  have  been  numerous  changes, 
combinations  and  additions  made  from  time  to 
time  among  the  constituent  companies,  so  that 
at  this  date  (October,  1917),  these  companies 
number  sixteen,  as  against  twelve  at  the  time  the 
Steel  Corporation  was  chartered  (February  25, 
1901). 

It  is  a  striking  tribute  to  the  growth  of  iron 
and  steel  production  in  this  country  that,  while 
the  Corporation  originally  controlled  about  sixty 
per  cent,  of  American  output,  its  total  annual 
capacity  at  this  time  is  somewhat  less  than  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  aggregate  production  of  Ameri- 
can mills  and  furnaces. 

This  information  is  given  here,  rather  than 
in  the  body  of  this  paper,  because  it  was  thought 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

best  to  avoid  an  excess  of  facts  and  figures 
which  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for 
those  who  heard  the  paper  read  to  assimilate 
and  remember  from  merely  hearing  them,  as 
well  as  because  the  paper  itself  was  so  largely  a 
matter  of  personal  reminiscence  and  personal  ex- 
perience. 

APPROXIMATE    ANNUAL    CAPACITY 

United  States  Steel  Corporation 

TONS 

Pig  Iron . 18,344,000 

Steel  Ingots 22,686,000 

Finished  Steel  Products,  for  sale 16,500,000 


Cement,  Bbls .-.  13,500,000 


100 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 


United  States  Steel  Corporation 

Manufacturing  Companies  in  Organization 


When  Organized 

Carnegie  Steel  Co. 
National  Steel  Co. 
American  Steel  Hoop  Co. 


Q  TlJ  T  K°> 
Shelby  Steel  Tube  Co. 


November,    1917 

Merged  .  .  Carnegie  Steel  Co. 
Clairton  Steel  Co. 

JMerged  .  .  National  Tube  Co. 

J 

The  National  Tube  Co. 


American  Steel  &  Wire  Co. 

American  Bridge  Co. 
Federal  Steel  Co. 

Illinois  Steel  Co. 

Lorain  Steel  Co. 


American  Steel  &  Wire  Co. 
Union  .  Steel  -Cfe- 
American  Bridge  Co. 
Federal  Steel  Co. 

Illinois  Steel  Co. 

Lorain  Steel  Co. 

Indiana  Steel  Co. 

Minnesota  Steel  Co. 

U.  S.  Steel  Products  Co. 

Universal  Portland  Cement  Co. 
Tennessee  Coal,  Iron  &  R.  R.  Co. 


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102 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

HISTORICAL 

Interesting  Facts  Concerning  the  Early  His- 
tory of  the   Use  and  Manufacture 
of  Iron  and  Steel. 

In  response  to  numerous  requests,  the  fol- 
lowing historical  data  concerning  the  early  use 
and  manufacture  of  iron  and  steel  is  given  here- 
with in  order  that  it  may  be  found  in  convenient 
form  for  reference.  This  information  has  been 
gathered  from  various  sources,  including  most 
of  the  authoritative  literature  on  the  subject. 
The  writer  claims  for  it  no  originality.  Nor  can 
he  claim  for  it  absolute  accuracy,  since  on  many 
points  the  facts  are  somewhat  in  doubt  and  it 
has  been  necessary  to  give  from  a  mass  of  con- 
flicting statements  those  which  seemed  to  be 
favored  by  the  weight  of  the  evidence. 

The  first  use  of  iron  probably  antedates  all 
human  records  and  even  the  oldest  traditions. 
The  place  at  which  it  was  first  discovered,  as 
well  as  the  manner  in  which  it  was  first  worked, 
are  lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  There  seems 
to  be  little  reason  to  doubt  that  it  was  among  the 
first  of  the  metals  to  be  used,  in  spite  of  a  com- 
mon impression  that  the  use  of  bronze  is  older. 

103 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

This  impression  seems  to  have  grown  out  of 
reference  to  bronze  in  the  earliest  chronicles; 
but  since  it  was  more  difficult  to  make  bronze 
than  iron,  the  latter  was  probably  used  in  var- 
ious ways  before  it  was  discovered  that  copper 
and  tin  could  be  combined  to  form  a  workable 
metal. 

So  far  as  is  known,  iron  was  first  used  in 
Western  Asia  and  soon  afterward  in  Northern 
Africa,  although  a  few  writers  lean  to  the  belief 
that  the  Chinese  deserve  credit  for  this  dis- 
covery, as  they  do  for  a  number  of  others  made 
early  in  the  known  history  of  the  race.  The 
first  reliable  evidence  of  the  employment  of  iron 
in  weapons  and  tools  comes  from  that  part  of 
the  world  in  which  man  has  left,  through  history 
and  tradition,  the  first  record  of  his  existence 
and  his  activities.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  the  first  iron  devoted  to  useful  purposes 
was  obtained  from  meteorites,  and  that  the 
first  iron  ore  taken  from  the  earth  was  mined  in 
Algeria,  where  ore  deposits  of  unusual  richness 
are  found  at  this  day. 

The  art  of  working  iron  seems  to  have  reached 
very  early  in  history  a  stage  which  would  indi- 
cate that  its  source  must  have  depended  on 

104 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

something  more  dependable  than  the  finding  of 
fragments  from  other  worlds.  Tubal  Cain,  de- 
scribed in  Genesis  as  "the  forger  of  every  cutting 
instrument  of  brass  and  iron,"  was  born  in  the 
seventh  generation  from  Adam,  and  he  must 
have  had  some  method  of  securing  the  raw  ma- 
terials for  his  trade  easily  accessible  and  within 
reasonable  distance  from  the  cradle  of  the  race. 
The  Egyptians,  whose  existence  as  a  people  is 
believed  to  have  begun  two  generations  after 
Noah  and  whose  civilization  is  the  earliest  of 
which  we  have  authentic  records,  made  consider- 
able use  of  iron,  which  they  most  likely  obtained 
from  Algeria.  An  inscription  found  among  the 
ruins  of  Karnak,  in  Upper  Egypt,  relates  that 
Thothmes,  who  reigned  about  seventeen  cen- 
turies before  the  Christian  era,  had  received  from 
the  tributary  kings  of  Lower  Egypt  presents  of 
wrought  metal,  with  vessels  of  copper,  bronze 
and  iron.  The  iron  probably  came  from  Al- 
geria, and  may  have  been  worked  before  the 
Egyptians  learned  to  fashion  a  cutting  edge, 
otherwise  they  would  probably  have  brought 
gifts  in  the  form  of  weapons,  which  at  that  period 
of  the  world's  history,  were  deemed  the  most 
important  of  all  implements. 

105 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

Steel  seems  to  have  been  first  made  in  Chal- 
ybia,  a  district  in  what  is  now  Armenia,  although 
it  may  have  been  known  in  other  parts  of  the 
East  at  an  earlier  date.  Steel  and  iron  tools 
found  in  India  and  said  to  be  three  thousand 
years  old  are  in  the  British  Museum.  They 
must  have  been  made  from  steel  formed  by  a 
process  similar  to  the  crucible  process,  for  their 
quality  is  excellent,  but  of  this  there  is  no 
record.  The  famous  pillar  at  Delhi  is  believed 
to  have  been  erected  six  centuries  before  Christ, 
and  if  this  supposition,  which  depends  chiefly 
on  an  inscription  in  Sanscrit,  is  correct,  the 
art  of  working  iron  in  large  masses  was  known  in 
India  at  a  very  early  date.  The  Delhi  pillar 
is  of  wrought  iron,  almost  entirely  pure.  It 
is  23  feet  8  inches  in  height  and  cylindrical  in 
form,  except  that  its  diameter  at  the  base  is 
somewhat  larger  than  at  the  top,  the  former 
being  16.4  inches.  An  ornamental  capital  sur- 
mounts the  column.  The  pillar  has  been  highly 
polished  and  is  covered  with  inscriptions,  al- 
though the  metal  is  so  hard  that  modern  tools 
mark  it  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  It  has 
defied  the  elements  for  twenty-six  centuries  and 
is  an  object  of  great  interest  to  metallurgists. 

106 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

The  inscriptions  give  no  information  as  to  why 
it  was  erected  or  by  what  method  the  iron  was 
brought  to  that  form. 

Iron  is  mentioned  in  a  Chinese  record  be- 
lieved to  have  been  written  2000  years  before 
Christ.  In  this  ancient  land  of  mystery  very 
little  advancement  has  been  made  in  the  pro- 
duction of  iron,  and  whether  the  metal  was  dis- 
covered first  there  or  in  Western  Asia,  the  fact 
remains  that  at  this  time  practically  none  of  it 
is  now  produced  on  that  continent. 

The  first  authentic  record  of  the  use  of  iron 
in  Europe  indicates  that  this  occurred  about 
700  B.C.  although  Greek  mythology  refers  to  it 
in  chronicles  far  antedating  that  period.  The 
Greeks  are  said  to  have  used  iron  during  the 
Trojan  War,  although  their  opponents  were 
not  acquainted  with  the  metal,  a  fact  which 
seems  to  be  established  by  the  failure  to  find 
any  trace  of  iron  among  the  ruins  of  ancient 
Troy.  As  in  other  instances,  this  use  of  the 
metal  is  a  matter  of  tradition,  and  the  first  au- 
thentic reference  to  it  in  Grecian  history  is  about 
700  B.C. 

The  Romans  learned  that  art  of  working 
iron  from  the  Greeks,  and  at  the  beginning  of 

107 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  Christian  era  it  was  extensively  employed 
by  them  in  the  form  of  weapons,  ornaments  and 
in  other  ways.  When  Vespasian  built  the  Col- 
iseum with  the  labor  of  slaves  brought  from 
Jerusalem  by  Titus,  about  A.D.  32,  he  used  iron 
ties  to  hold  the  great  stones  in  place. 

Abundance  of  rich  ores  in  Spain  led  to  that 
country  becoming  early  one  of  the  chief  sources 
of  iron  and  one  of  the  earliest  sources  of  steel 
in  Europe.  There  the  first  advances  were  made 
in  the  smelting  of  ore  by  the  invention  of  the 
Catalonian  forge,  which  was  later  used  in  every 
country  in  Europe  and  even  in  this  country. 
This  primitive  furnace  may  still  be  found  in 
use  in  many  parts  of  the  world.  The  forges  of 
Aragon  and  Catalonia  acquired  high  fame  in  the 
production  of  steel,  and  the  swords  of  Toledo 
have  never  been  excelled  in  beauty  and  quality. 
Here,  as  in  Asia  and  China,  development  of 
efficient  methods  never  made  much  progress, 
and  Spain  is  now  among  the  inconsequential 
producers  of  iron  and  steel. 

The  Belgians  were  among  the  first  European 
peoples  to  make  much  progress  in  these  indus- 
tries, and  they  have  always  been  relatively  large 
producers  of  iron  and  steel,  as  well  as  among 

108 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  most  skillful  artificers  in  these  metals.  They 
made  iron  before  the  invasion  of  the  Romans, 
and  have  been  known  as  the  most  accomplished 
artists  in  certain  lines  of  its  manufacture  since 
that  time.  The  pathetic  fate  of  their  great  fac- 
tories under  the  heel  of  the  Prussian  invader 
is  one  of  the  features  of  the  present  European  war. 

The  Germans  were  among  the  last  peoples 
in  Europe  to  be  civilized  and  among  the  last  to 
learn  the  art  of  manufacturing  iron.  They  have, 
however,  made  greater  progress  in  this  line  than 
most  other  nations.  At  a  time  when  the  Roman 
soldiers  were  equipped  with  iron  swords  and 
lances  and  even  iron  armor,  the  Germans  fought 
them  through  their  dark  forests  writh  wooden 
spears,  bows  and  arrows.  Not  until  1,000  years 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  did 
these  Germans  begin  to  make  iron  in  any  quan- 
tity. They  then  invented  the  "stuckhofen"  an 
improvement  on  the  Catalan  forge,  and  later 
they  devised  the  "blauofen"  which  was  the  pro- 
genitor of  the  modern  blast  furnace.  The 
"blauofen"  was  gradually  developed  until  1450 
A.D.  a  furnace  of  this  type  24  feet  in  height 
was  operated  in  the  Thuringian  mountains.  This 
furnace  was  equipped  with  a  wooden  bellows, 

109 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

which  a  church  organist  had  invented  to  super- 
sede the  leather  bellows.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  present  war,  Germany  stood  second  in  the 
list  of  the  world's  producers  of  pig  iron,  with  a 
tonnage  of  almost  12,000,000  as  compared  with 
30,000,000  in  the  United  States  and  9,000,000 
for  England. 

France  has  never  been  a  great  producer  of 
iron  and  steel,  and  the  history  of  those  indus- 
tries on  Gallic  soil  has  been  about  the  same  as 
in  other  parts  of  Europe.  In  none  of  the  old 
world  nations  was  much  progress  made  in  the 
ten  centuries  preceding  the  Nineteenth,  but  since 
that  time  the  growth  of  iron  and  steel  manufac- 
ture has  been  rapid.  The  Krupp  Works  at 
Essen,  Germany,  and  the  Creusot  Works  in 
France  were  founded  about  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century  and  since  that  time  both  countries 
have  advanced  rapidly  in  the  use  of  improved 
methods.  France  produced  about  4,000,000 
tons  of  pig  iron  in  1915.  Her  great  steel  works 
are  now  almost  exclusively  devoted  to  the  man- 
ufacture of  munitions  of  war. 

The  blast  furnace  made  its  first  appearance  in 
England  in  the  Fifteenth  Century  and  there,  as 
everywhere  else,  the  result  was  an  astonishing 

no 


x 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

development  of  the  industry.  The  great  prob- 
lem of  previous  ages  had  been  to  secure  tempera- 
tures high  enough  to  melt  iron  ore  rapidly,  and 
when  this  was  solved  by  the  use  of  an  effective 
blast,  other  improvements  followed  immediately. 
England  was  the  first  country  to  feel  the  short- 
age of  wood  caused  by  the  consumption  of  whole 
forests  in  making  charcoal  for  blast  furnace  fuel, 
and  in  the  middle  of  the  Seventeenth  Century 
the  iron  industry  suffered  a  severe  check  be- 
cause of  a  popular  uprising  against  the  further 
use  of  wood  for  this  purpose.  It  was  feared 
that  if  the  blast  furnaces  kept  on  demanding 
charcoal  not  enough  timber  could  be  found  to 
maintain  the  royal  navy.  This  agitation  led 
to  the  discovery  of  coke  about  1750,  and  with 
it  came  almost  a  revolution  in  the  manufacture 
of  iron. 

Crucible  steel  was  first  made  in  England  in 
1740,  the  process  having  been  discovered  by 
Benjamin  Huntsman,  who  was  not  an  iron  work- 
er, but  a  maker  of  clocks. 

The  art  of  working  iron  was  brought  to  this 
hemisphere  from  the  Old  World.  The  North 
American  Indians  had  absolutely  no  knowledge 
of  it,  and  there  has  been  found  no  evidence  that 

111 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  Mound  Builders  ever  smelted  iron,  although 
it  is  probable  they  knew  its  value,  for  they  used 
a  few  weapons  and  tools  fashioned  from  meteoric 
iron  by  hammering.  In  Mexico  and  South 
America  the  Spaniards  found  the  natives  famil- 
iar with  the  process  of  smelting  and  working 
silver  and  gold,  but  they  apparently  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  use  of  iron. 

It  was  in  quest  of  gold,  too,  that  the  first 
discovery  of  iron  ore  on  this  continent  was  made 
by  the  English.  They  were,  of  course,  disap- 
pointed that  the  more  precious  metal  could 
not  be  found,  but  events  have  proved  the  iron 
deposits  of  North  America  to  exceed  in  wealth 
the  most  fabled  dreams  of  the  original  gold 
seekers. 

Iron  was  first  discovered  in  North  Carolina 
in  1585.  Ore  was  shipped  to  England  from 
Jamestown  in  1608.  Ten  years  later  a  bloomary 
and  forge  were  erected  at  Falling  Creek,  Va., 
but  before  they  were  put  in  operation  the 
Indians  descended  on  the  workmen,  slaying  them 
and  destroying  their  enterprise.  Thus  Virginia 
lost  the  honor  of  producing  the  first  iron  in 
America.  This  went  to  Massachusetts,  where, 
in  May,  1645,  the  first  successful  smelting  of 

112 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

iron  ore  on  this  side  of  the  world  took  place, 
three  tons  being  made  at  Lynn  during  May  of 
that  year. 

Little  progress  in  the  manufacture  of  iron 
or  steel  was  made  in  this  country,  from  this 
time  until  the  early  years  of  1800,  the  colonies 
having  been  encouraged  to  depend  on  the  mother 
country  for  their  supplies  and  many  difficulties 
being  encountered  in  the  then  new  and  thinly 
settled  regions  where  the  first  iron  enterprises 
had  been  established.  At  the  close  of  the  Eight- 
eenth Century  the  Napoleonic  wars  distracted 
the  attention  of  the  English  from  American 
markets  and  required  all  the  product  of  their 
furnaces,  so  that  by  1812  the  iron  industry  in 
the  United  States  had  attained  some  headway, 
furnaces  being  erected  in  many  parts  of  the 
country  where  ore  could  be  found  and  where 
wood  for  charcoal  was  abundant. 

Then  came  the  downfall  of  Napoleon,  and 
soon  after  the  revival  of  the  export  trade  of 
Britain,  which  had  a  disastrous  effect  on  these 
new  enterprises  as  well  as  on  all  manufactures 
in  this  country.  Many  of  the  furnaces  were 
unable  to  compete  and  went  out  of  commission. 
But  little  progress  was  made  from  1820  until 

113 


Fifty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel 

the  opening  of  the  Civil  War,  which  created  an 
immediate  demand  for  iron  and  steel.  Many 
new  furnaces  were  erected,  every  method  of  in- 
creasing production  was  eagerly  seized,  and  from 
that  time  forward  the  growth  of  the  industries 
has  been  phenomenal. 

Developments  following  the  Civil  War  period 
have  been  discussed  at  length  in  the  paper, 
"Sixty  Years  of  Iron  and  Steel,"  which  imme- 
diately precedes  this  chapter. 


114 


14  DAY  USE 

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